Many people do not even think about getting to know a bit more the programming languages, saying this is simply not for them. Well, just because you are not planning to become a programmer, doesn’t mean you have to be isolated from the technology. After all you live in 2013 and if you want to have strong hard skills when applying for your next job, you should consider at least trying to understand how they work together. Then, working with developers would be much easier.
The good news is that you do not need to pay for that knowledge, and you definitely do not need to study informatics in the university. Here are several tips what online tools to use in order to start and improve your e-skills. It’s not that hard once you have a goal.
I will start with quite inspiring project of a girl with art background. People with art background do not have that analytical thinking like the guys keen on maths. What that means is that if she can do it, than you can do it too. Check out Jennifer Dewalt’s project 180 websites in 180 days
Codecademy is a website where you can start learning the basics from the scratch. They have great tutorials about front-end and back-end stuff. If you haven’t tried html, css, javascript, php or ruby before, you can start right away there.
It is all about experimenting. Once you get the basics, you need to spend more time on trying different stuff with your new knowledge. Do not forget that if you have any questions, you can ask Google. It should be the first place to look for answers, because in most of the times someone already solved your issue. You can also always check how something should look like in html, css, javascript etc. on W3Schools – they have a lot of examples and tutorials as well.
When it comes to the software you have to instal, one of the best editors is Sublime Text. You can check out this tutorial to make sure it is right for you.
Once you start creating stuff, try to improve it all the time and create your portfolio. Nowadays great examples of your work is much more worthy than certificates and diplomas from coding courses and schools.