Programming can also be fun and rewarding (mentally, spiritually and financially). This guide does not promise to give a magical easy way to becoming a programmer, and the ordering of the steps is not sacred, but you’ll get a general outline of how to become a programmer in one of the modern programming fields.
Prepare yourself for becoming a programmer:
Take an introductory course in logic, discrete mathematics or both.
Learn at least one of the following program conception techniques. As you advance in programming you may find them useful.
Learn database concepts such as tables, views/queries and procedures. You can use any simple database package to do this, such as MS access, DB V, Fox Pro, Paradox. MySQL is a particularly good database to learn because it’s free, commonly used, and databases are commonly accessed with SQL queries.
Learn about programming paradigms (an introduction is enough for now)
Decide what type of programmer you are/want to be. Programmers generally fall under one of the following categories:
Web Programmer
Desktop Application Programmer
Distributed Applications Programmer
Before you write your first PHP program, make sure that that your website is running on a web host that runs PHP 4.1 or above.
You may also find it useful to have a copy of PHP 4.1 or later installed on your own computer. This makes testing your PHP scripts much easier.
And of course, you will need an ASCII text editor of some kind (such as Notepad on Windows).
You have at least some knowledge of HTML. This is necessary because if I have to explain all the HTML tags as well, this tutorial will end up being tediously long.
You’ll probably need a bit of programming background, or at the very least, an aptitude for computer programming. Note that being able to code in HTML does not count, since HTML is not a programming language.
You really need background in both web design using HTML and a bit of programming skill/aptitude, otherwise this article will be indecipherable.