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mhd.m
Starting Member
3 Posts |
 Posted - 2012-07-29 : 00:08:55
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| hi everyone.now im new to the forum so i dont know if ive posted this into the correct area.....Im wanting a career change and want to get back into developing/programming.after graduating(business it) i had a change of direction with stuff that came up in my personal life.im 30, and ive been a sales manager at a retail company, but just havent got my heart in it anymore.Ive always wanted to be a programmer/developer and i just want to get on with it.i want to get into sharepoint but before that i would like to learn sql. because im at work and with family and kids i dont have much time. i will be putting in rougly about 30 hours per week into it. now i really want your expert help about where would be the best place to get good training/resourses/materials for learning sql first.help will be appreciated alot. |
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sunitabeck
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
5155 Posts |
Posted - 2012-07-29 : 08:26:08
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You say "get back into developing/programming". Do you have some prior experience or training in programming? If so you already may have the answer to "why SQL, over many other choices in software?". The reason I am asking is because in my opinion, you have to be passionate about and love what you do to excel at it. And to make a successful career out of it, you have to excel at what you do.So if you are brand new to SQL, before deciding that SQL is it, I would spend a week or so reading some basics and see if you enjoy it. These are websites that have basic information.http://www.sql-tutorial.net/ http://www.firstsql.com/tutor.htm http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.aspAfter you spend some time doing that, if SQL seems like it excites you ( and I mean a tinge of pleasure and excitement when you fire up SQL Server Management Studio in the morning, as opposed to when you shut it down in the evening), by all means, do dive in. SQL server community, and SQL Team in particular is one of the most supportive group of people. There are people with a deep knowledge of SQL on this forum, and in my experience, most of them are patient, willing and, often go out of their way to help us. There are also a number of blogs, online articles, books, and the MSDN documentation to help you and answer pretty much any question you may run into.To get started, you can download the SqL Server express 2012 from Microsoft website. It is free to use. As you get more into it, you can buy the developer edition which is full featured, and is not very expensive at all.Sorry if I sounded like a school ma'm; I will get off my soapbox now  |
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mhd.m
Starting Member
3 Posts |
Posted - 2012-07-29 : 09:25:45
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quote:
Originally posted by sunitabeck
You say "get back into developing/programming". Do you have some prior experience or training in programming? If so you already may have the answer to "why SQL, over many other choices in software?". The reason I am asking is because in my opinion, you have to be passionate about and love what you do to excel at it. And to make a successful career out of it, you have to excel at what you do.So if you are brand new to SQL, before deciding that SQL is it, I would spend a week or so reading some basics and see if you enjoy it. These are websites that have basic information.http://www.sql-tutorial.net/ http://www.firstsql.com/tutor.htm http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.aspAfter you spend some time doing that, if SQL seems like it excites you ( and I mean a tinge of pleasure and excitement when you fire up SQL Server Management Studio in the morning, as opposed to when you shut it down in the evening), by all means, do dive in. SQL server community, and SQL Team in particular is one of the most supportive group of people. There are people with a deep knowledge of SQL on this forum, and in my experience, most of them are patient, willing and, often go out of their way to help us. There are also a number of blogs, online articles, books, and the MSDN documentation to help you and answer pretty much any question you may run into.To get started, you can download the SqL Server express 2012 from Microsoft website. It is free to use. As you get more into it, you can buy the developer edition which is full featured, and is not very expensive at all.Sorry if I sounded like a school ma'm; I will get off my soapbox now
thanks for replying sunitabecki did enjoy sql when i did it back at university. i have been through a few video tutorials and websites. i class myself a complete beginner. i am very excited about it and want to excel further. i just sometimes think when i do come to a stage where im good enough to get a job then will it be easy to find a job career as my age and experince would lack compared to maybe other candidates.ive started late but ive decided to give it everything. |
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russell
Pyro-ma-ni-yak
5072 Posts |
Posted - 2012-07-29 : 18:19:44
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| Great post Sunita.mhd.m, I changed careers at about your age. I know how scary it is. But it was the best thing I ever did. It changed my life. I liked what I did before, but I love what I do now.I say go for it, and the sooner the better. In addition to the resources Sunita suggested, THIS site is going to be probably your best resource. Read as many threads as possible. Once you've gained a little knowledge, try your hand at answering other people's questions. I don't mean regurgitating what you've learned here, I mean, someone has an interesting problem, work it out for them. Figure out the answer to their question and two great things happen: (1) They get the help they needed and (2) you got an outstanding exercise and learned something too.Another thing I strongly recommend (VERY strongly) is to invent a project for yourself. Pick something that interests you. Develop a database for it. Maybe even a web site or a .NET program to interact with that database. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it interests you. This gives you a project to work on while you learn. It will be fun because it will be two things that interest you -- the subject matter and the coding.When you have questions of your own, post 'em up. Even if you do things that work, don't be afraid to post it to see if it can be improved upon. I promise you that yyou'll write code that works and a year from now or two years from now you'll look at it and wonder what kind of monkey wrote that garbage! Good luck! |
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Transact Charlie
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
3451 Posts |
Posted - 2012-07-29 : 18:28:29
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Hi mhd.m,quote:
im 30, and ive been a sales manager at a retail company, but just havent got my heart in it anymore.Ive always wanted to be a programmer/developer and i just want to get on with it.
Good for you! Development can be a hard, demanding, exhausting and occasionally frustrating career but it can be incredibly rewarding as well. There is a real sustaining joy when people actually use the software you have made. Lets face the fact that you won't have the same experience as other candidates. This isn't the handicap it might appear to be. When I'm interviewing candidates - The most important things I'm looking for are:1) The intelligence and smarts to be able to learn2) The enthusiasm to learn and a real excitement for development and technology.3) enough of a basic grounding so that we don't have to go all the way from square 1And I really mean that. If someone doesn't care about the subject then why would I hire them? How could I expect them to come up with ideas if they actually don't care?What you need to do is take care of point 3) Get the basic grounding.When you are dealing with databases then it's not just a language you will need to learn. You are going to have to learn about the underlying implementation to be able to understand design choices / index implementation etc. There's a whole meta world of data manipulation outside of the core language (dealing with importing large files) - simply dealing with bigger data sets.Also, database development isn't really something useful on it's own. You could design the most awesome database but if there isn't anything using it then it's worth absolutely nothing. This makes it a little difficult to pick up the necessary skills -- first you need to work somewhere where there is a database requirement for you to cut your teeth.My honest advice if you want to be a database developer is to try and get a position in technical support. Many companies provide services and most of those services contain databases. Database that probably were not written by db professionals (that's just the way of it). Those databases need support -- someone to fix minor sql bugs, work out why things are slow, etc... Also, you'll get grounding in the same tools most people use for development (management studio, sql server profiler, etc).That will give you the grounding you need to go further.Good luck!Transact CharlieMsg 3903.. The ROLLBACK TRANSACTION request has no corresponding BEGIN TRANSACTION. http://nosqlsolution.blogspot.co.uk/ |
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mhd.m
Starting Member
3 Posts |
Posted - 2012-07-30 : 06:12:39
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quote:
Originally posted by russell
Great post Sunita.mhd.m, I changed careers at about your age. I know how scary it is. But it was the best thing I ever did. It changed my life. I liked what I did before, but I love what I do now.I say go for it, and the sooner the better. In addition to the resources Sunita suggested, THIS site is going to be probably your best resource. Read as many threads as possible. Once you've gained a little knowledge, try your hand at answering other people's questions. I don't mean regurgitating what you've learned here, I mean, someone has an interesting problem, work it out for them. Figure out the answer to their question and two great things happen: (1) They get the help they needed and (2) you got an outstanding exercise and learned something too.Another thing I strongly recommend (VERY strongly) is to invent a project for yourself. Pick something that interests you. Develop a database for it. Maybe even a web site or a .NET program to interact with that database. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it interests you. This gives you a project to work on while you learn. It will be fun because it will be two things that interest you -- the subject matter and the coding.When you have questions of your own, post 'em up. Even if you do things that work, don't be afraid to post it to see if it can be improved upon. I promise you that yyou'll write code that works and a year from now or two years from now you'll look at it and wonder what kind of monkey wrote that garbage! Good luck!
Hi russell thanks for taking time to reply.... I'm very happy to get everyone's help here...If you don't mind me asking his many hours were you practicing and how hard is it to get a job and what experience do jobs ask for... Should I just learn SQL server or should I learn basics and learn other databases.. |
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sunitabeck
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
5155 Posts |
Posted - 2012-07-30 : 09:04:30
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quote:
Originally posted by russellAnother thing I strongly recommend (VERY strongly) is to invent a project for yourself. Pick something that interests you. Develop a database for it. Maybe even a web site or a .NET program to interact with that database. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it interests you. This gives you a project to work on while you learn. It will be fun because it will be two things that interest you -- the subject matter and the coding.
This is a very nice idea. I recall reading somewhere that the site PlentyOfFish www.pof.com started out that way. The founder wanted to learn ASP.Net programming and created the site as his learning project. Now it is one of the premier dating sites.To mhd.m: My view is that, you should concentrate on just one RDBMS (SQL Server). Almost all the tasks that a DBA does and most of the tasks that a database developer does require detailed knowledge of the specific vendor's implementation of the relational database. What works efficiently for Microsoft implementation may not work well for Oracle and vice versa. So try to become expert in the product of your chosen vendor. Besides, I see very few, if any, job postings that require simultaneous expertise in more than one RDBMS.Disclaimer: My assertion that "POF is one of the premier dating sites" is just hearsay; I have no personal experience  |
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new starter help appreciated