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Path to Web Developer job?
Question: 
I am a senior software developer with a large financial organization working primarily in C along with my firm’s proprietary database packages. I have a B.S. in a field unrelated to IT/Computer Science. I am interested in transitioning into a web-based development position with the hope of eventually moving into a consulting position. I don’t have any experience in this field and little knowledge of what skill set would be necessary. Any advice you might have on the steps I need to take to get there would be very appreciated. I’m not interested in returning to school on a full-time basis as I have obligations that would make that difficult; however I’m willing to taking classes or continuing education. Thank you in advance.
Answer: Since your work experience is in C. I would suggest starting off by learning PHP. Everything that you want to know about it can be found at http://www.php.net/
The reason I recommend it is explained by this short history of PHP:
PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page. It began in 1994 as a set of Common Gateway Interface binaries written in the C programming language by the Danish/Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf. Lerdorf initially created these Personal Home Page Tools to replace a small set of Perl scripts he had been using to maintain his personal homepage. The tools were used to perform tasks such as displaying his résumé and recording how much traffic his page was receiving. He combined these binaries with his Form Interpreter to create PHP/FI, which had more functionality. PHP/FI included a larger implementation for the C programming language and could communicate with databases, enabling the building of simple, dynamic web applications. Lerdorf released PHP publicly on June 8, 1995 to accelerate bug location and improve the code.[9] This release was named PHP version 2 and already had the basic functionality that PHP has today. This included Perl-like variables, form handling, and the ability to embed HTML. The syntax was similar to Perl but was more limited, simpler, and less consistent.
It is very similar to C so you will have less learn time. It’s also open source so you can get it all for free.
While PHP jobs do not pay as well as .NET or Java Web Development roles, it is growing popularity in the corporate world. I expect the wages for PHP Developers to continue to climb.
Here are some PHP Jobs to show you their frequency:http://career-advisor.jobamatic.com/a/jobs/find-jobs/q-PHP
It’s a start for your Web Development career. Good Luck.
