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Where did you learn to code?


Josie
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Where did you learn to code?

 

Almost 13 years ago, I started coding on Neopets. Anyone else remember that place, and the pet pages you usually did character applications on? Yup! Welp! That's how I learned to code.

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I initially learned to code some basic HTML in school. Though at the same time I got heavy into Flash animation and learning Actionscript (coding language of Flash). I never got super far into it though. After that I had the idea of combining actionscript and PHP for a roleplay idea. The idea never really took off as it was pretty difficult for me to figure out how to pass data from a mysql query into the actionscript (and so I never really got it working). But in the process I learned a little PHP.

 

Fast-forward a bit and I was in university, I took a computer science course (because why not) and learned a bit of Java. But also I learned some basic stuff on how to use a terminal/unix commands as part of that course.

 

It wasn't until I started my own site that I really buckled down and learned any amount of CSS/javascript. After I went self hosted I started to learn more PHP figuring that eventually I would need it. (I learned enough to code my own plugin... but kind of haven't advanced too much from that relatively simple one.)

 

Then last year when my former host notified me they were shutting down I decided to go for a VPS instead of another shared host. I was in a time crunch (I figured I had only like 3-4 days before the host closed my account because my bill was due and I wasn't going to pay for 6 months knowing that I'd only have been able to use less than half of it) so I didn't have a ton of time to research options on either other shared hosts or many VPS options. But I managed to get a decent pick (indirectly thanks to some people on the MyBB support forum) and because of my earlier experience with that computer science course... I had things up and running fairly smoothly within a day. (Well... at least until I encounter that email bug. Never did figure out why email wouldn't send. All the components looked like they were functioning properly.)

 

Spoiler

My reasoning for picking a VPS was four fold...

1- it was actually cheaper than going with a similarly featured shared host.

2- it gave me the option to have full on mature content. I can post straight up porn if I so desired where on the previous host I could not.

3- it gave me even more resources than a shared host. (On a shared host I could have only 10GB of disk space and like 500GB of bandwidth. On VPS I have significantly more.)

4- it gave me more control than being on a shared host. (I could install whatever panel I wanted, add mods when I wanted. Change PHP versions, or not, if I wanted.)

 

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"There are three sides to every story... Your side, their side, and then somewhere in the middle is the truth."
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I started learning when I was 13. I may only be able to do snippets of work still in javascript but I'm pretty good (if you ask me) with HTML and CSS. Just I only typically use it on proboards XD. I've done some multimedia related courses at college but nothing really has stuck. 

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I learned much the same way you did, @Gothams Reckoning. I started poking around with the Neopets pet pages when I got into online RP via Neopets. From there I coded stuff for Horseland (back when it was actually cool and fun). In high school I did have a class that "taught" some HTML, but I already had self-taught all the information we learned by that point. But yeah. I learned through looking at pages and codes and trying to figure out how to replicate them. If I see a cool code I might want to integrate into something later, I tend to bookmark it so I can come back to it.

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Find me on:

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{Erin}   {Little Bird}

 

 

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I started similar to you @Gothams Reckoning and @txernest however I really didn't get into it until it was more directly introduced to me in college. They taught us basic HTML and CSS.

 

Then I got really into designing skins on original AvidGamers. From there I've just improved my skills, my tools and love Google.

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Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter.

 

 

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Guest Archaic Cyborg

Basic and not-so-basic HTML, javascript, CSS throughout high school and then at home, on my own time, on various sites; LiveJournal, tumblr, proboards, jcink.

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  • 3 weeks later...

4 years ago, my now co-admin and I agreed it would be fun to start a fan-based rp board and see what would come of it. It fell to me to start from absolute scratch with both forum roleplay as well as jcink hosted boards. I went to the local library for solitude, stat down for a minimum of four straight hours, and poured over every bit of basic coding I could poke and prod at. I wanted to give up... or at least cry. It looked impossible.

 

I eventually learned what the different hieroglyphic symbols called "css" meant. I eventually learned how to modify them. I eventually learned what coders were doing and why they did it and how it worked. 4 years later the site is still around and here I am, coding for all my own templates and skins.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I did a few thing on Neopets. Didn't RP there, but toyed around with the shops. Then when I made my first RP forum on proboards - I tinkered until I could figure out the basics of modifying small variables like colors and adding codes created by others to mess together into how I wanted the skin to look. And Google's helped troubleshoot. I still only know the basics as far as figuring out modifications, but I cannot write any coding myself.

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Good old trial and error mixed in with HTML from years ago.

 

I'm not good enough to do anything large from scratch but I can work my way around a skin and figure out why most things are where they are or how to fix something that isn't right or put something back that has been removed etc and change up colours, sizes etc.

 

Kudos to those that can start with nothing and make something awesome!

5a691fb4de413_advertisingbanner_rpginitiativeTS.png.699678f5663abf3c750d133673768a18.png

Plot | Rules | Canons | Wanted | Advertising

 

 

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I'm another trial and errorer. I wanted to be able to change things so I dug around, tried out bits and pieces. What happens if you put this here? Oh yay! Urgh. etc etc

 

Been at it for about 3-4 years now and I feel pretty confident. Re-skinned my whole site, modified it and I'm proud. Now to try making something from scratch >.>

Find me on my sites!
The Next Incantation :: The Last Island
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  • 1 month later...

I learned some HTML in high schoo in one computer course I took and then didn't touch coding again umpntil like six years ago when I decided I wanted to make my own skins and templates and then I just followed tutorials others had posted on resource sites I am on. I will sometimes Google stuff too to see how to do it.  But mostly I learned coding from tutorials.

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Profile graphics by @Lirschen

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  • 1 month later...

I started out on Neopets too! It didn't hurt that my older brother was a huge nerd and, at the same time I was figuring out html, he was building computers and collecting all those "coding for dummies" books. I was about 12 and, wanting to do everything he was doing, followed dutifully in his footsteps. I got pretty decent at html and css and took some typing and computer skills classes in jr. high/high school, though they never taught me anything I hadn't already taught myself. I got into resource sites tutorials and classes and mostly just played around with it. In college, I got a job at the IT Help Desk, and got to take some free lessons in other coding languages and helped consult my boss on the university website design. I never really took most of it as more of a hobby, though. However, I do include it on my resumes now! It's a valuable skill in my field, and I can usually fudge my way through anything I encounter that I don't explicitly know, thanks to google and friends I've made along the way. And to think, I now maintain my company website because of some Neopets pages I coded when I was 12!

translunary.gif.5374a61b67b4df1af4bb898e0c039553.gif

a dark, urban fantasy;

inspired by sailor moon

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I started out on Yahoo's geocities which shows how long I've been around. I didn't like it much because the editors then were pretty basic and very cumbersome to use. (Didn't help because I didn't have a computer on the internet at home, so did most of my work through computers at the library) I took an Open University course in web design and learned to use netscape composer. That was better, because I could make webpages on my computer at home, transfer files on to a disc and upload them the next time I was at the library. I had difficulty getting pages to link and images to work properly so I had to do that once the pages were uploaded. By this time, I had actually moved to bravenet and that was better because I didn't have geocities' editor to contend with. However, I probably got into coding more when I stopped using netscape composer and started using CSS in templates. Things looked better then. I can make small modifications to forum layouts, change images, colours, fonts, etc, but I wouldn't be able to code a forum skin from scratch because I don't understand all the coding that the forum needs to work and I prefer not to touch the functional part of a forum code. (If we could have something like proboards but with better plugins I'd be happy.)

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@Icewolf wow you are really taking me back!

 

Geocities was where the app and who's who and site info was placed. Images were hard to come by if you didn't have a scanner, and even if you did, they were too large to up/download. 

 

Sooooo slow and should I dare mention dial up internet access? 

5a691fb4de413_advertisingbanner_rpginitiativeTS.png.699678f5663abf3c750d133673768a18.png

Plot | Rules | Canons | Wanted | Advertising

 

 

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Dial up access was a pain. I first started using the internet on a regular basis at college and the number of times when I couldn't get on to the internet because of the modem being slow was a pain! I remember going through all the computers that we had and still having trouble getting on. The problem with images though was down to people saving them as bitmaps, and jpegs weren't much better because they usually came out blurred, especially if it had writing on them, and gifs had hardly any colour at all. By the time I was using the library computers it wasn't as bad, but I often lost image files to corruption and sometimes files saved on the discs would disappear.

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