The Daily Programmer

Which one is better? To read the full story click the  Udemy Blog Post  link.  I have struggled with choosing a primary language for years.  As I am not formally trained as a computer programmer I did not have the luxury of being taught different languages.  I choose on personal preference rather than complete knowledge of the what the coding language could do. You can only use PHP to build web applications.  Which is great if that is all you want to do.  PHP works great when combined with a database like MySQL, POSTgres, or Oracle.  There is a lot of functionality built into the language that is useful when building web apps.  Examples: WordPress, Facebook, and MailChimp. Java can be used to build desktop apps, web app, and mobile apps (Android).  Java can also supports multi-threading, the use of a database, report engines, and run on any OS (Operating System) with the classic, "Code once run everywhere" mentality. The choi...

On my quest to learn how to program I picked up this little gem of a book. " PHP & MySQL for Dummies ", by Janet Valade. It took me about 2.5 years to get through the whole book.  There would be days and weeks that I would take it home read it and work on the examples.  There were also months where I didn't touch the book at.  I would forget the majority of what I learn and would have to start over. Naturally this got frustrating so one evening I came up with a plan to read and work on the examples for one hour a day.  My goal was two months to finish the book but it ended up being 3. Nevertheless I was able to finish the entire book.  As I look over the body of work I create I was happy to see that I made a lot of progress.  There were 5 different projects and each one was different.  Learning PHP opened my eyes to how much work and detail goes into a website. The next challenge is learning how to program in PHP as a Object Oriented Prog...

I just looked back at an old blog post from 2012 and it turns out that it was about Java Programming.  Recently I picked Java back up.  Over the past 2.5 years I have been working with Python, PHP, and SQL.  From a web stand point those languages have served me very well.  The point I have been missing with programming with those languages has been OOP.  Object Oriented Programming. Learning how to code via OOP opens up so many avenues.  Don't get me wrong Python and PHP are both procedural and OOP language.  The difference with Java is that it is exclusively OOP.  That means that every piece of the program is written in a class. 'Methods' or I liked to think of them as 'Functions' are coded in a way that is reusable.  There have been plenty of times I would work on a website and end up copying code from one page to another.  That's lame... Two pieces of advice that I started taking for myself has been to sign up for a class on li...

This video always makes me laugh.  As an IT person we already know the answered to 95% of calls that come in the call center.  They are very basic.  But when you have a IT person that is distracted and doesn't care it can cause serious issues.  Enjoy -

Yesterday and today I was able to build and code my first program. I followed a set of instructions from the Java Docs page. It took longer then the time alloted. The first time I attempted building the program I did not build it completely. There was one step that I skipped. I was able to finish the program and it worked. It really worked. Today I rebuilt the same program and this time I built the entire program and made it look good. If I was grading the look I would give it an A. I put both programs side-by-side and just by looking at it you could see the difference. Today's build looked legit and worked just as well. I learned one thing from music that I carried with me. To learn how to play like a professional musician you have to learn songs that professionals wrote. You have to imitate before you can do. Its the basis for any learning. When a child grows and learns he or she will imitate their parents. By imitating you learn how things are done. You lea...

When I was a kid my dad worked for different companies doing computer work. Dollar Bank, Hornes, and GNC are the 3 companies that come to mind. Working in the computer field required him to work from home sometimes. In the late 80's early 90's I can still remember the PC (personal computer) that he owned and worked on. The IBM PS/1 was a small PC created and released from IBM. It wasn't much by today's standards, but back in the day it was a great escape for a child's imagination. - The IBM Personal System/1 was a compact, easy-to-use computer primarily for use in the home. Its developers wanted a computer that would be easy enough for the novice to use and powerful enough for the more advanced user, flexible enough to meet the needs of every family member, a snap to set up, and priced economically (ranging from $999 to 1,999). - Making its debut on June 26, 1990, the PS/1 fit the bill in every respect as a serious machine that was simple to use. New ...