Your coding and database skills?

School and on the job experience

Borland U

Of course, that saying is a bit dated and was back when Borland was one of the major publishers of computer programing books.

Nowadays, I guess you'd say "O'Riley U".

Basically, LOTS of reading and then just start banging out some code and learn what works and what doesn't.

Also, the web is an endless resource that you will tap daily when creating your apps. There are a TON of good tutorial sites and site for coders to share information.

As to database skills; that really depends on what you want to do. This is a very large area of study and not for the faint of heart. Not that I think you are. I am quite sure you are up to the task.

One thing you must grasp is the concept of good database design. The best book I have read that helped me a lot (some would say I didn't learn a darn thing) is Database Design for Mere Mortals.

Once you get to know your way around a database, you need to learn how to get meaningful data out of it and for that, you will get into the arcane art of SQL.

All the O'Riley books I've ever read are good.

If you intend to build web database apps, be sure to pay attention to proper means of "SQL injection defense". (No crass remarks please)

All in all, there is no learning like doing. Just jump in and start. However FOM (Fear Of Manuals) is not an option.

First computer was a Commodore Vic-20 in early 80's. Learned BASIC programming for it from various magazines and books. Saved programs to cassette tape Next was a Commodore 64 and 5-1/4 disk drive and messed around with a little Assembler for it. NO THANK YOU!!!

As Industrial Engineer student at GA Tech, we took a few database design courses and learned to do special coding for engineering projects - some discrete event simulations and statistical packages.

Over the years I picked up more and more programming and database experience. Last 10 years I've been supporting an Oracle based student information system and writing lots of SQL code, Unix shell scripts and PC batch files for it. We've created lots of custom views, packages and "side applications" using the database. At least 95% has been OJT and RTFM learned.

First learned FORTRAN in a college course (though I was long past college). First learned DBase on my own, just using the DBase manuals.

VERY important perspective to keep in mind on databases: The ones you hear about the most are relational. These are also the ones that are taught. HOWEVER, the ones in actual use in industry are often "old tech", based on fixed indexes instead of being relational. Become a master of one and you will be a cripple at the other ...

walking wounded Kelly

My what......

Technical school then 30 years on the job.

Self taught, College, work sponsored classes.

The problem with self-taught is that while you may learn how to program, you won't necessarily learn how to program correctly.

Wasn't until college when I learned data abstraction, modular programming, etc.

Yep. Biggest problem with being self-taught is the teacher.

+1 to Boatsrule.

I can't program my danm VCR let alone a 'puter.

Coding was on an Apple IIe. I learned database on an IBM 8086. Before there were clones and when a 2mhz computer ran about 7K. That was with 64K of ram and no hard drives

My former employer

College and work.

In college, we learned COBOL and RPG II (yuck) on an IBM 4043 mainframe, 3270's, and... punch cards! Punch cards and the IBM 029 punch machine were antiquated then (I'm not that old) - but they gave you an appreciation for program logic and efficiency of coding that no other technology can provide.

Our lab had a couple of TRS-80's on which we learned BASIC. Heady stuff. My senior year, the lab got the first two IBM PC's on campus. One of them had dual floppies, the other had a 20MB hard drive ("...you'll never use all that..."). Both were locked in a room and could not be accessed without special permission from a professor or if you were a grad student.

In one of my more advanced classes on database design, we spent a couple of days talking about the then-new IBM System/38. It was a radical machine at the time, with it's own native database language and coding tools as part of the OS. Little did I know that I would spend the first 3 years of my career on one of the few S/38's in Kansas City, and the next 12 on it's descendant, the AS/400. That platform gave me a good career and while I no longer work on it, it's still relevant.

College gave me the ability to get that first job, the first year of which I spent working for and learning from the man who left the following year to become IT Director for the Kansas City Chiefs and the rest of Lamar Hunt's enterprises - he's still there today - and the next two years as his replacement. At my 2nd employer, I spent the first year proving my technical skills, and the next few moving increasingly into project management roles, learning from those already doing that - learning how to manage clients (the component of my career that I seem to be best at), learning the ins & outs of interviewing prospective employees, writing & delivering performance reviews, etc.

Very interesting stories. All engineering majors are requiring at least one programming class (simple C++). In talking with one of my CE professors, they're thinking about increasing it to two required courses.

It made me curious about you guys.

D

Learned HTLM and Visual C++ code as part of the Computer Engineering curriculum in college. Wow, already been 7 years now.