If one were to enter college for web development...

[Fritzo]

...what would be the area that you would pour most of your resources into?

Java?
Abobe?
.Net?

What would you focus your degree on?

 

[Tweak155]

.Net. CS.

 

[Fritzo]

.Net. CS.

CS?

I'm researching this for my nephew Not my area of expertise.

 

[Saint Nick]

All of them...I have been looking at jobs for web development and I only know JavaScript, ColdFusion, XML, and HTML. I don't have very much experience though.

Anyways, all of the job descriptions are listing off tons of different languages. They want people to know it all. ActionScript (Adobe), Java, XHTML, XML, .NET, C#, and whatever else they can throw at you. I wish I knew half of those.

 

[Ksyder]

Definitely Abobe. This is a yet-to-be explored area of the world wide web.

Sorry... damn low hanging fruit

 

[Tweak155]

CS - Computer Science

 

[dank69]

nvm

 

[PricklyPete]

computer science is what you want

 

[acheron]

If your "degree" is in a specific language, you need to drop out of DeVry and go to a real school. (Not "you" specifically, this is all just general advice.)

Get a real computer science degree from a real school, well grounded in theory and so on. The individual languages really aren't important; if you know how to program and can think like a programmer you can pick up any new language easily. Especially since whatever the current "hot" language is will be outdated by the time you get out of school.

 

[Wyndru]

Be a man, go for perl cgi.

Just kidding.

 

[Skeeedunt]

What acheron said.

 

[DesiPower]

If your "degree" is in a specific language, you need to drop out of DeVry and go to a real school. (Not "you" specifically, this is all just general advice.)

Get a real computer science degree from a real school, well grounded in theory and so on. The individual languages really aren't important; if you know how to program and can think like a programmer you can pick up any new language easily. Especially since whatever the current "hot" language is will be outdated by the time you get out of school.

This.

My masters degree (IS) did have 4 (/12) hard core programming courses so you can get a pretty descent programming experience, but ya collage degrees are not about any language. ALTHOUGH, most of the univs (like mine) will get lots of free stuff from MS and so most of the profs will be more inclined towards .NET, some schools from where my friends graduated did have java also BUT MS had bigger labs and other facilities available.

 

[xanis]

From my experience, a decent web developer would ideally know a reasonable amount of all the popular languages, with a specialty in one or two.

When I'm designing a website, I want to send it out to a well-rounded developer who can do a decent range of stuff. Sending it out to multiple people is a PITA and leaves more room for error.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

If your "degree" is in a specific language, you need to drop out of DeVry and go to a real school. (Not "you" specifically, this is all just general advice.)

Get a real computer science degree from a real school, well grounded in theory and so on. The individual languages really aren't important; if you know how to program and can think like a programmer you can pick up any new language easily. Especially since whatever the current "hot" language is will be outdated by the time you get out of school.

Yup. What's with people thinking about programming languages and goign to school about those? It's computer science or bust. Just like if you like playing around with hardware, you don't go to do computer repair. You either get a EE degree or whatever. Otherwise, its' not engineering.

 

[Fritzo]

If your "degree" is in a specific language, you need to drop out of DeVry and go to a real school. (Not "you" specifically, this is all just general advice.)

Get a real computer science degree from a real school, well grounded in theory and so on. The individual languages really aren't important; if you know how to program and can think like a programmer you can pick up any new language easily. Especially since whatever the current "hot" language is will be outdated by the time you get out of school.

He's going to a state university, so no problem there. He just wants to make sure he's marketable

 

[beyonddc]

I suggest to get into Computer Science and learn web development on the side or minor in web development.

I am not sure how far you can go with a web development degree. In fact I don't think a lot of school offers a specific major in web development.

 

[fire400]

Web development wouldn't necessarily, in it's entirety be a full-fledged degree so much as it would be recommended to be called a certificate of multiple programming languages that specialize around the areas of XML, HTML, JAVA, etc. And then you'd probably be able to call yourself a website developer, not that it's no accomplishment, because it is. To the business sector, website programming is more like a tech degree, just depends where you're going. CS usually takes a little bit more work, if not a lot of dedication as any other field of study.

"Development" can be miscommunicated as research. In terms of website developer as a lesser degree, you are not entering the research field unless you want to be an assistant (if you're even lucky enough) to a Masters or PHD level graduate. Web dev. enables the graduate to learn how to create and modify and adapt to new web based languages and protocols, etc.

With CS, it's much more in depth with more advanced languages, allowing the graduate with CS to pursue more advanced career oppurtunities. So account for 'adaptability'. You can always try out for an associates in CS and do a tech degree in web development.

I think what people are tying to get at here is that if you want a quick trait and easy cash, do the web developer career, it will allow you to get your feet wet if you just don't feel like doing CS all the way, if any at all, but the classes may overlap with CS. Then again, it depends on the school you go to, months and years could be useful in acquired skills and knowledge or it could a waste if you're not sure what you want to do. Just depends on career goals and the way you learn like how efficient you are with math/logic and learning program languages.

Just finish what you start/started.

 

[purbeast0]

web development is basically a subset of CS.

but from my experience in general (i am a CS grad) web stuff was so ridiculously easy to pick up on the side and learn on my own. i wrote some very database driven sites that used php, javascript, html, and some css. it also used xml schemas for some stuff.

but like i said if you get a degree in CS, that kind of stuff is a walk in the park to learn and use at a fairly high level.

on the other hand, if you are strictly learning web development, going and picking up a job that requires java or C++ (or any OO language) is not going to be a walk in the park at all, and you probably would have no clue wtf to do.

 

[Saint Nick]

The hard part about web development is the design. You gotta know your GUI stuff pretty well. The back end is the easy part. I guess if you have a creative sense, the whole she-bang is pretty easy...

 

[xanis]

The hard part about web development is the design. You gotta know your GUI stuff pretty well. The back end is the easy part. I guess if you have a creative sense, the whole she-bang is pretty easy...

This is why you need partnerships.

I design, then get someone else to code (if it isn't an easy job). They get paid accordingly. Good web design, especially in larger projects, needs a creative person and a code person.

 

[steppinthrax]

...what would be the area that you would pour most of your resources into?

Java?
Abobe?
.Net?

What would you focus your degree on?

Java and .NET. When searching for jobs I tend to find either or. Companies like AT&T, UPS and Legg Mason use Java. While gov agencies, lockheed, and various other use .NET. I think it's a pretty good balance. Both will make you in a good position in case Microsoft goes down!!!!! Java has advantages over .NET vise versa.

 

[steppinthrax]

The hard part about web development is the design. You gotta know your GUI stuff pretty well. The back end is the easy part. I guess if you have a creative sense, the whole she-bang is pretty easy...

That's why there are web designers and web developers.

 

[beyonddc]

I think they have a separate concentration for creating GUI and stuffs. I believe the major is "Human Factor Engineering".