Keynote article ...
Looking for a career change - Physician to Web Site Designer
A change of career mid-life has always been popular, and something more sedentary has often been the choice of people who have started off in something that's predominantly active such the military or sport. I have trained an Olympic Judo Champion ... in programming. And with the current economic changes around the world, there are far more people exploring this sort of option at present. For some it will work, and will work well but for others it will be a frustrating road if they're lacking in the commitment or aptitude. So - should you take this route / this new career path is you're thinking about it?
It's worth looking at. It's worth considering the options, it's worth seeing if you enjoy the challenge. And it can be done. I headed this article "Physician to web Site Designer" as I have just completed an email response to someone who's considering that route, and asked if I could write him a series of tutorials so that he could learn at "nominal cost" and save himself course and travel fees; I had to write back and say "no" as it doesn't make sense for me to invest all my time (and time = money) into him when he's not prepared to invest his own money and - I suspect not enough of his time. But at the same time, I have given training - and just a very little training - to a surgeon who has gone on to do really great things in IT. There was an aptitude, a clear thought process, and a focused mind there and I was very much the facilitator rather than the ogre pushing him along, or the encourager who kept picking him up when a code issue or other frustration arose.
A change from xxxxx to IT / Web design / PHP is a huge change. There's a lot to learn and there are a lot of good people out there ahead of you.
Still reading?
Then let me share the second tranche of my answer to "Craig", who wrote 'I expect you'll know what this issue is and sort it quickly' as he wrote about something I didn't actually know, but read up on within a couple of minutes and could offer some direction on.
I wrote:
I've been in IT for the best part of 40 years - you talk about me being quick sorting these these things out and, yes, I probably am, simply because I've seen so many things happen. An aptitude for it is just one small element - it's the experience of saying " yes - I've seen that sort of pattern before and the type of thing to look for is xxxxx".
I used to say that I could often do in a day what a newcomer would take a week to do, but I have changed that to "I can often do in a morning". And that's simply the time saved by experience of being able to code quickly (near automatically), to reuse my own and other's code, and to spot errors very quickly indeed - and again there's an experience factor there. There are probably eight to 12 really common errors in PHP, for example, and some of them are not obvious from the error messages to the newcomer. The newcomer often blames PHP (or the other language he's using) for this obtuseness, but in my view is wrong to do so. For every time you run a script and get an error message, you'll run that same script thousands of times after correcting the error, and the last thing you want is a performance hit added to the language because it's spending time making the messages really useful for 1 case in a thousand. (If you're concerned with this, go for the Java model where code is not compiled every time - but that's another story!)
Why am I writing this ... even in an answer like this - for efficiency / re-use. This is not the first time I've been asked a question like this, it won't be the last, and it's going be added to my resource kit ;-) .... a.k.a. my blog. Then I can refer back to it easily. And even in that statement there's something of the philosophy of coding coming through.
If you are looking at a career change to web sites / computing (and this change, which has always been a popular aspiration, is even more prevalent at the moment) then you need to be prepared to invest heavily in doing so, and know that there's a lot of competition out there and you will need the aptitude for it to work for you, or enjoy it so much that you can put in long, long hours which will often be frustrating. The investment I talk about will certainly be an investment in time - on projects that take you five times longer than they would take me, and at the end of which you say "if only I had known when I started" so you may end up redoing them. And it may be a financial investment too. Training courses such as the ones we offer can seriously short-cut some elements of the time taken, and can save you an awful lot of experimenting by helping you learn how to read code and fix code errors, how to code for re-use, and how to avoid blind alleys - and the gains carry on for years and years after the course.
Naturally, as a training provider I recommend the use of such courses but if you choose to say "they're not for me" then you can still get there. Your road will be a longer one, and if you value your time even at 25c per hour, you'll probably end up spending more in the long term, finishing up with code that's not going to be as clean / robust / maintainable. Ah - but I did say "probably". It's possible that you could be a budding Rasmus Lerdorf, Larry Wall or Guido van Rossum and produce something that's quite extraordinary, very quickly, and takes the world by storm. But come to think of it, I don't know what courses if any they attended!
Enough of my writing ... good luck however you choose to go. And do look us up if you happen to be in the UK and passing near to our area at any stage in the future.
(this article written on 2009-04-28) |
Other articles ...
[2120] Java on the Web Server - course for delegates with some prior Java experience
- (new - 2009-04-06)[2096] Where is my new Apache httpd installed
- (new - 2009-03-22)[2094] If you have a spelling mistake in your URL / page name
- (new - 2009-03-21)[2088] Changing the 404 - file not found - page in Tomcat
- (new - 2009-03-18)[2082] Jmeter - a first test case
- (new - 2009-03-14)[2081] Connecting jconsole remotely - the principles
- (new - 2009-03-14)[2080] Using ApacheBench and jconsole to test and monitor Tomcat
- (new - 2009-03-14)[2079] Java - Memory Allocation and garbage collection
- (new - 2009-03-14)[2077] Why put Apache httpd in front of Apache Tomcat
- (new - 2009-03-12)[2072] Copyright, Portability and other nontechnical web site issues
- (new - 2009-03-09)[2063] Internal Dummy Connections on Apache httpd
- (new - 2009-03-02)[2062] Virtual hosting and mod_proxy forwarding of different domains (httpd)
- (new - 2009-03-01)[2061] Tomcat 6 - Annotated Sample Configuration Files
- (new - 2009-03-01)[2060] Database connection Pooling, SSL, and command line deployment - httpd and Tomcat
- (new - 2009-03-01)[2059] Sharing the load between servers - httpd and Tomcat
- (new - 2009-02-28)
Top or
Show all for Apache HTTP and Tomcat Servers
[2086] C Programming v Learning to Program in C. Which course?
- (new - 2009-03-17)[2005] Variables and pointers and references - C and C++
[2004] Variable Scope in C++
[2002] New C Examples - pointers, realloc, structs and more
[1675] Comparing Objects in C++
Top or
Show all for C and C++ Programming
[2128] Wiltshire - where everybody matters
- (new - 2009-04-13)[2119] Make your business a DESTINATION business
- (new - 2009-04-05)[2111] Business Networking for Melksham - 23rd April
- (new - 2009-04-01)[2095] Blue Ridge and Melksham Chambers of Commerce
- (new - 2009-03-21)[2066] Melksham Industrial
- (new - 2009-03-04)
Top or
Show all for Melksham
[2041] httpd, Tomcat and PHP course enhancements
[2032] Mobile Internet - an alternative to hotel WiFi
[1996] Advise before my Apache / Tomcat course
[1989] So sad to see you go
[1933] Learning to Program in C
Top or
Show all for Training from Well House Consultants
[2126] Weeding out old phone numbers
- (new - 2009-04-11)[2125] We have lost a regular business guest
- (new - 2009-04-10)[2124] Building down expectations
- (new - 2009-04-09)[2109] Why most training fails ...
- (new - 2009-03-30)[2102] What do people think of our Apache httpd / Tomcat course?
- (new - 2009-03-24)[2084] Books and distance learning from Well House Consultants?
- (new - 2009-03-15)[2074] Weekday or Weekend PHP, Python and Perl classes?
- (new - 2009-03-10)
Top or
Show all for Running a training and hotel company
[2076] A New Advert for Well House Manor
- (new - 2009-03-11)[2014] First Class
[1968] Review of 2008
[1929] 2009 - Hotel, Meeting, Training Course prices
[1907] Melksham Hotel Rates
[1866] What a difference a day made
[1824] Which is your best hotel room?
[1815] Hotel Guest Surveys
[1809] Coming home tonight
[1808] We love children ... but our hotel is not going to be their scene
[1800] Spiders Web
[1786] Picturing the rain
[1706] The Story of Well House Manor
[1701] Training Course and Business Conference Technology
[1683] Plenty of car parking at Well House Manor, Hotel, Melksham
[1676] A warm welcome for visitors from the USA
[1499] Climate change, renewable resources and paper v plastic
[1492] Well House Consultants Training and Hotel - 2008 news
[1388] Well House Manor - a year on
[1384] An email update for past guests and delegates
[1328] Oliver says ....
[1318] Well House Manor - feature comparison against the old place!
[1290] Badges, Breakfasts and Trigger
[1276] On flooding in Wiltshire and elsewhere in the West of England
[1264] Business events in Melksham
[1263] 0800 043 8225 - a new phone number for Well House
[1261] High summer at Well House Manor
[1255] Interviewing job candidates in Melksham
[1227] Melksham businesses - networking together
[1200] Training information - England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland
[1196] The last tree to leaf
[1164] Grand Central Station
[1142] Planters in the Spring
[1132] Well House Manor, Melksham, Art Gallery
[1089] Playing old games
[1079] Wilts and Berks - two conference / training rooms in Melksham
[1072] Well House Manor in the Snow
[1059] Three sets of twins
[1018] Open Source Courses and Business Hotel - products and prices for 2007
[998] The year of the exploding projector
[963] George Hotel and Well House Manor, Melksham
[940] Winter at Well House Manor - Open Houses
[933] Course Joining package - updated
[926] Training rooms to learn Open Source programming
[891] Well House Manor Hotel, Melksham, Wiltshire
[889] Opening approaches!
[873] Hotel Exchange Rates
[864] Add to shopping cart - NO VACANCIES sign
[731] Hotel Technology Requirements
[707] A story of goldfish
[667] Well House Manor goes ahead
[643] If it's Sunday, it must be Bedwyn
[617] Easy, Free, Reliable internet access
[615] Looking for leading not bleeding edge
[575] Eating for the single business traveller
[525] Vision AND venture
[512] Exciting futures - the Well House Manor project
[379] Getting the lighting right
[252] A West End show
Top or
Show all for Well House Manor - Hotel and Training Centre
[2145] Using the internet to remotely check for power failure at home (PHP)
- (new - 2009-04-29)[2116] Why do we delay new forum members through authorisation?
- (new - 2009-04-03)[2103] Ask the Tutor - Open Source forum
- (new - 2009-03-25)[2065] Static mirroring through HTTrack, wget and others
- (new - 2009-03-03)[2056] Web Site Loading - experiences and some solutions shared
Top or
Show all for For the Webmaster, Postmaster and moderator
[2099] Should I maintain the programming code on my own website?
- (new - 2009-03-23)[2092] Tracking difficult bugs, the programmer / customer relationship
- (new - 2009-03-20)[2048] Learning to program in PHP, Python, Java or Lua ...
[2022] Pre and post increment - the ++ operator
[2001] I have not programmed before, and need to learn
Top or
Show all for General Programming Topics
[2137] Reaching the right people with your web site
- (new - 2009-04-23)[2107] How to tweet automatically from a blog
- (new - 2009-03-28)[2097] PHP Course - for hobby / club / charity users.
- (new - 2009-03-22)[2073] Extra PHP Examples
- (new - 2009-03-09)[2071] Setting up a MySQL database from PHP
- (new - 2009-03-08)
Top or
Show all for PHP - the language and its application
[2115] Finding your java program - the CLASSPATH variable
- (new - 2009-04-02)[2114] Which Version of Java am I running?
- (new - 2009-04-02)[2091] C, C++ and C# ... Java and JavaScript
- (new - 2009-03-20)[2087] Comparing Java Courses - what can we do?
- (new - 2009-03-17)[2058] Invoker and cgi servlets on Tomcat 6
- (new - 2009-02-27)
Top or
Show all for Java and the Java Environment
[2142] Riverside Development
- (new - 2009-04-26)[1930] Bath Christmas Market
[1859] Wiltshire at dawn - the tourist trail
[1851] Pictures from a delegate
[1846] Old Piles of the South West
Top or
Show all for Around, about and nearby to Wiltshire
[2129] Nothing beats Perl to solve a data manipulation requirement quickly
- (new - 2009-04-14)[2070] Converting to Perl - the sort of programs you will write
- (new - 2009-03-08)[2069] Efficient calls to subs in Perl - avoid duplication, gain speed
- (new - 2009-03-07)[2067] Perl - lists do so much more than arrays
- (new - 2009-03-05)[2047] Small Web Server in Perl
Top or
Show all for The Perl Programming Language and its use
[2135] What features does this visitors browser support? (PHP)
- (new - 2009-04-22)[1998] Text on a background image
[1926] Flash (client) to PHP (server) - example
[1831] Text formating for HTML, with PHP
[1814] Javascript/HTML example, dynamic server monitor
Top or
Show all for Client Side Languages (HTML, CSS, Javascript)
[2104] Ruby Programming and Rails - 4 different courses in one
- (new - 2009-03-26)[1891] Ruby to access web services
[1890] MySQL database from Ruby - an example
[1889] Ruby mixins, modules, require and include
[1887] Ruby Programming Course - Saturday and Sunday
Top or
Show all for Ruby and Ruby on Rails
[2134] Oracle take over Sun who had taken over MySQL
- (new - 2009-04-21)[2110] MySQL - looking for records in one table that do NOT correspond to records in another table
- (new - 2009-03-31)[2085] MySQL - licensing issues, even with using the name
- (new - 2009-03-16)[2053] What a difference a MySQL Index made
[1935] Summary of MySQL installation on a Linux system
Top or
Show all for SQL and MySQL
[2040] Error: Cant read xxxxx: no such variable (in Tcl Tk)
[1785] What is running on your network? (tcl and expect)
[1782] Calling procs in Tcl and how it compares to Perl
[1614] When an array is not an array
[1613] Regular expression for 6 digits OR 25 digits
Top or
Show all for Tcl, Tcl/Tk and Expect
[1847] Lua - IAQ (Infrequently Answered Questions)
[1845] Passing a table from Lua into C
[1844] Calling functions in C from your Lua script - a first HowTo
[1842] Lua Course, and the Wiltshire Countryside too
[1841] Formatting with a leading + / Lua and Perl
Top or
Show all for Programming in Lua
[2123] Using Python with OpenOffice
- (new - 2009-04-09)[2020] Learning Python - many new example programs
[2018] UnboundLocalError - Python Message
[2017] Python - a truly dynamic language
[2013] wxPython - Introduction and sample
Top or
Show all for Python Programming
[2146] An evening excursion to Devizes and Avebury
- (new - 2009-04-30)[2141] Town Crier competiton
- (new - 2009-04-25)[2140] Beware - giving copyright away when you upload a picture - Dogs Trust
- (new - 2009-04-25)[2132] Learning about Lurchers
- (new - 2009-04-18)[2121] Out in the Vale of Pewsey
- (new - 2009-04-07)[2118] Spring Sprung
- (new - 2009-04-05)[2113] Answering a question with a question
- (new - 2009-04-01)[2112] Whatever next ... the joys of being an employer
- (new - 2009-04-01)[2106] Learning to Twitter / what is Twitter?
- (new - 2009-03-28)[2105] Hire Car, from Atlanta Airport
- (new - 2009-03-27)[2101] A B C D of GA and TN
- (new - 2009-03-23)[2100] Visiting Family
- (new - 2009-03-23)[2098] A room without a view
- (new - 2009-03-22)[2093] Leading Lines
- (new - 2009-03-20)[2090] Melksham to Georgia
- (new - 2009-03-19)[2078] A lot has changed - but the memory lingers on
- (new - 2009-03-12)[2068] Playing Catchup
- (new - 2009-03-06)[2064] East of Melksham Countryside
- (new - 2009-03-02)
Top or
Show all for And also ...
[2133] Bigger and better this year!
- (new - 2009-04-20)[2083] Do you support a decent train service? Please sign up!
- (new - 2009-03-15)[2075] Supporting Parkinsons and Trains
- (new - 2009-03-11)[2057] Train and Coach fares from London (and airports) to Melksham
[2042] Wiltshire Rail Service Update
Top or
Show all for Public Transport
[2143] Throughout the year, around the world
- (new - 2009-04-27)[2138] Ski bore ... train bore ... dog bore
- (new - 2009-04-24)[2131] Patterns in street names
- (new - 2009-04-17)[2127] Call in the professionals!
- (new - 2009-04-12)[2122] Commission Creep
- (new - 2009-04-08)[2108] Funny Amusing, Funny Amazing and The Smarts
- (new - 2009-03-29)[2089] The Longest Day - Wednesday, 28th September
- (new - 2009-03-18)
Top or
Show all for Fun and Flames
[2144] Looking for a career change - Physician to Web Site Designer
- (new - 2009-04-28)[1955] How to avoid duplicating web page maintainance
[1857] November and December Public Course Schedule
[1773] The Longest Possible Day
[1414] What we teach - expained for the non-technical
Top or
Show all for Keynote Articles
[2139] OS Commerce install made simple
- (new - 2009-04-24)[2130] Javascript - move cursor over image to change a different image.
- (new - 2009-04-16)[2117] Choosing a railway station fairly in PHP
- (new - 2009-04-04)[2035] 1234567890 ... coming up on Friday 13th
[2023] sw_vers - what version of OSX am I running?
Top or
Show all for Linux and Shell Programming
Public Transport • Training from Well House Consultants • And also ... • Tcl, Tcl/Tk and Expect • Programming in Lua • Python Programming • Well House Manor - Hotel and Training Centre • Apache HTTP and Tomcat Servers • The Perl Programming Language and its use • Ruby and Ruby on Rails • PHP - the language and its application • C and C++ Programming • Linux and Shell Programming • Melksham • SQL and MySQL • For the Webmaster, Postmaster and moderator • Java and the Java Environment • Fun and Flames • Running a training and hotel company • Around, about and nearby to Wiltshire • Client Side Languages (HTML, CSS, Javascript) • Keynote Articles • General Programming Topics
A little more about this newsletter ...
At Well House Consultants, we run niche IT training courses ... and we run a hotel for delegates on those courses and other visitors to Melksham too. And we make a lot of friends - have a lot of ambassadors with whom we want to keep in touch. So every day Graham (that's me, writing this piece) puts together an article or two which might include the latest sample programs that I've written during the current course, new information about
Well House Manor - our business hotel, tips on search engine optimisation,
announcements of upcoming public courses, pictures of local places, and even (on occasions) rants and whimsical pieces to keep those friends up to date and in touch. The feeds are available directlt via the Blog -
"The Horse's Mouth", they're on our
Twitter Feed and you can find me at my
LinkedIn profile.
But most people just want to look us up occasionally - every month or two, and then to catch up on the latest news just for their particular subjects of interest ... and that's what this newsletter is about
You'll find above the titles of ALL the new articles written in the last two months, listed by major subject area, and showing as
(new) with their date of publication. You'll find additional articles in each category too - topping each category up to a minimum of five articles. And you'll find a link at the end of each section which lets you expand that section to show the titles of every article that's been published in that section. After all, "the old ones are often the best ones", aren't they?