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Ive been frantically looking for them but it takes hours and hours and not much comes up.
Thanks
S
The company I used to work for would send programmers to Java class for 1 week and it cost the company min $2000 dollars. I took a semester long Java class at my local community college for $75 bucks and I guarantee its a lot more in depth than a one week cram course my company would pay for.
Interesting side note: My company would not pay for the community college course because it wasn't during biz hours. How stupid is that.
I admit most of the "courses" I have come across have left a little to the imagination, which aint a bad thing.
What I enjoy about the internet is that it is an open medium, for anyone who has something to say.
So what you really need to learn is how to present what you have to say in the most appropriate way. Then learn the ways to do that. Not the same for everyone. Which can be a problem if you are involved in "organised" education.
I guess what I am asking, stef25, is what is it you want to learn and for what objectives?
in depth php, xml etc ...
Training from a local college is risky. I've known several people who have taken college degrees in this stuff, and were sadly disappointed after spending 5 days on HTML, 2 days on Flash, 3 days on PHP, etc. By the end of the program, they knew a tiny bit about a thousand technologies, and were still incapable of building a good successful website. Those who survived in the industry were those that spent the next few years in intense self-directed learning at an entry-level on-the-job position.
In my opinion, building websites is a "riding a bike" kind of skill - you can't learn to do it by watching or reading in a book. There are 5000 mistakes that you need to make before you get your groove. A few million keystrokes later, you're riding like a pro.
The same argument has come up every time I needed to learn a new technology. Should I enroll at a local college for a night course in ASP? SQL? TCP/IP Foundations 101? Every time, I found that after a few weeks of reading online tutorials and experimenting with servers and browsers, I was better prepared than colleagues who had a fresh diploma in the subject. Because along the way, I added a few hundred mistakes to my level of experience.
Sometimes all I really needed for a kick-start was a good overview manual, like one of the O'Reilly books or a "___ Bible" manual. I consider an investment of $70 to be worth it when compared to a colege course for $1200.
Having good mentors is extremely important, which is where on-the-job training is invaluable. If you get really involved in the WebmasterWorld community here, it serves a similar purpose and fills that need for many junior developers who don't have a more experienced mentor in a nearby cubicle. Books won't tell you that it's best to name all your files in lower-case, but the dude who had all his pages double-indexed in the SERPs will. While I got the basics of SQL from self-directed learning, it was the community of experts that taught me the subtleties of good data architecture.
I'm still learning because I have looked for situations where I will be surrounded by highly competent people.
Get out and do.
rather than quit the job and study alone at home, i think i would feel better quitting the job and following some "formal" education.
but i fully understand that you can get just as far doing it in your free time
thanks for all the answers
