Hello!
I am new to this forum so please forgive If I have this post in the wrong place.
I have been working for years in the graphic arts field however not much with the web itself. I know all about graphics for the web and graphics itself. I know Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
I am also proficient with Dreamweaver, Flash and CSS, however don't have a lot of experience with them.
Every time I check job postings besides CSS, Dreamweaver, Flash I see requirements to know PHP, .NET, ASP, Java, SQL, Joomla. It's impossible to learn all of them.
So the question I have is which one should I learn? Should I focus just on Flash, or coding with Dreamweaver or CSS. Which programming language should I learn? In other words what will be a good start for me. What kind of skill are employers looking for these days? How to sell myself to potential employers?
I am changing my career after 25 years in Graphic field and your professional advice will be greatly appreciated.

mac_man

Honestly if you are a graphics guy, stick with that. Keep learning Flash (maybe start doing some Silverlight), CSS, HTML and mybe get into a bit of javascript. If you start learning programming you'll only end up being a half assed programmer. You have to love programming in order to become even half decent. It is better to be great at one or two things than to be ok at a bunch.

I've been programming as a hobby for 10 years and professionally for 3 and consider myself to still have a ton to learn.

However, if you are passionate about learning this, then learn PHP or C# (I'm a C# man myself, great IDE and a good following), SQL will be a must as well for either. You should also learn regular expressions which are used in a lot of languages.

Hope this helps in some way.

Originally Posted by mac_man

Hello!
I am new to this forum so please forgive If I have this post in the wrong place.
I have been working for years in the graphic arts field however not much with the web itself. I know all about graphics for the web and graphics itself. I know Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
I am also proficient with Dreamweaver, Flash and CSS, however don't have a lot of experience with them.
Every time I check job postings besides CSS, Dreamweaver, Flash I see requirements to know PHP, .NET, ASP, Java, SQL, Joomla. It's impossible to learn all of them.
So the question I have is which one should I learn? Should I focus just on Flash, or coding with Dreamweaver or CSS. Which programming language should I learn? In other words what will be a good start for me. What kind of skill are employers looking for these days? How to sell myself to potential employers?
I am changing my career after 25 years in Graphic field and your professional advice will be greatly appreciated.

mac_man

Hello!
I am new to this forum so please forgive If I have this post in the wrong place.
I have been working for years in the graphic arts field however not much with the web itself. I know all about graphics for the web and graphics itself. I know Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
I am also proficient with Dreamweaver, Flash and CSS, however don't have a lot of experience with them.
Every time I check job postings besides CSS, Dreamweaver, Flash I see requirements to know PHP, .NET, ASP, Java, SQL, Joomla. It's impossible to learn all of them.

I think that last guy just really sums it all up, doesn't he.

Thanks for all help. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.
Again since I have to focus on one or 2 skills (I know I can't learn it all) I would like to focus on The MOST important skill employers are after.
I have no idea how important is web graphic skill in corporate world. (personally I think is marginal) As mentioned before I have some CSS, XHTML, Flash and some (Basic) AS3 skills, none of PHP or Java. So my question is which one should I master so I can get a job with a corporation.

Thanks

I would go with java or c++ i am always hearing people in forums say those are the best two languages to know, and they usually say java would get you a job faster then any other language.

You have to decide what you want to be first.

There are front-end designers who do visual design work, some who do the visuals and code it into HTML/CSS, some who do all that and also know Javascript.

There are back-end designers who know PHP/MySQL/Javascript/ActionScript and other languages (including HTML/CSS because it's simple) but don't consider themselves artistic so don't do the designing, or keep their designs simple.

Then there are people who do everything. This is what most companies want because they don't have to pay two people seperately, but it's not easy to find a lot of people who have a high level of coding and design skills. One of their skills is usually weaker than the other, but not always.

Thank you for all info. It starts making sense now.
Does anyone know what's the need for actionscript out there. I have some knowledge of Flash animation. Since learning of java or actionscript seems like substantial investment of time I want to make sure I use it the best way.

mac_man