My name is Ben. I'm looking for an online community to help with my web development skills. In high school (about a decade ago) I was part of hardwareanaylsis.com and it was an immensely helpful resource while building my first computer. I got into over clocking but never ventured into programming. Throughout college I went down the liberal arts path and now five years out of college and several dead-end minimum wage jobs later I am back living at home and teaching myself php.
The decision to learn php was almost entirely pragmatic. It seems to be the most in demand language skill with a reasonably low barrier to entry. I worked through several courses at teamtreehouse.com but left without feeling any sense of mastery; it's kind of like learning how to paint by copying Bob Ross. I did learn quite a lot there but I felt it was time to move on.
I am currently working through a series of loosely sequential php instruction books by Larry Ullman. Right now I am in the last chapters of "PHP for the Web" and have been so impressed with his presentation and style (also a former philosophy and literature student) that I have purchased almost all of his current volumes and plan to work through them as well. I want to build a portfolio of sites using the knowledge I will have gained before applying for jobs.
Anyway, I like the look of this site so I thought I would see what I can learn and if I may be able to contribute.
Thanks,
Ben