I started development actively in 2010. At that time I was in my first year of college doing Mechanical Engineering which I didn't grasp really well. So, I ended up putting all my time into development.
The first thing I built was a small website which was a music catalogue. When I think about it now, it seems utterly pathetic but it was the first thing I ever built. Later on, I got into WordPress and spent a lot of my time picking up PHP and writing new themes. This was an enlightening experience as I picked up a lot of plugin writing practices and I ended up being invited to a few WordCamps.
In the coming years, I learnt a good deal of JavaScript and was working with PHP frameworks to write a lot of admin interfaces for my own projects and some tools for my college's software development team.
In the last one year, I picked up Ruby and wrote a few tiny gems.
With this much experience, I have been able to port code from most of the languages I have encountered to all the languages I know.
Currently, I work at a company where I write a lot of PHP, SQL queries, a lot of front-end and all of us are expected to be full-stack.
My only advice to you would be:
1. Start slow. Try to spend a lot of time learning from other people's code and attempt to imitate a lot of code which is already out there. Solve the same problem many other's have done and trust me that you will learn a lot more from it.
2. Why don't you start a blog? You can start with a blogging system in the beginning and maybe later you can write your own.
3. When you say:
> "But I don't know how to make a site with logic and structure behind it that will lend itself to solid functionality that users can benefit from."
My answer would be, "If you can solve a problem for yourself, then there is bound to be a person who is benefit from it."
The first thing I built was a small website which was a music catalogue. When I think about it now, it seems utterly pathetic but it was the first thing I ever built. Later on, I got into WordPress and spent a lot of my time picking up PHP and writing new themes. This was an enlightening experience as I picked up a lot of plugin writing practices and I ended up being invited to a few WordCamps.
In the coming years, I learnt a good deal of JavaScript and was working with PHP frameworks to write a lot of admin interfaces for my own projects and some tools for my college's software development team.
In the last one year, I picked up Ruby and wrote a few tiny gems.
With this much experience, I have been able to port code from most of the languages I have encountered to all the languages I know.
Currently, I work at a company where I write a lot of PHP, SQL queries, a lot of front-end and all of us are expected to be full-stack.
My only advice to you would be:
1. Start slow. Try to spend a lot of time learning from other people's code and attempt to imitate a lot of code which is already out there. Solve the same problem many other's have done and trust me that you will learn a lot more from it.
2. Why don't you start a blog? You can start with a blogging system in the beginning and maybe later you can write your own.
3. When you say:
> "But I don't know how to make a site with logic and structure behind it that will lend itself to solid functionality that users can benefit from."
My answer would be, "If you can solve a problem for yourself, then there is bound to be a person who is benefit from it."
Good luck to you.