Starting a big project from scratch can strike fear in the hearts and minds of even the most skilled developers, but what happens when you’re not even sure where to begin?
Duncan Hunter’s master’s degree in nutrition didn’t exactly prime him for life as a developer, but he decided that in order to create the kind of software he envisioned for his clients, he needed to tackle the project with a developer’s eye.
After first trying one-on-one lessons and text-based tutorials, Duncan realized that it wasn’t a good fit. Not only was it expensive, but the amount of time required during each session was posing another challenge. “So you do two hours once a week and you wouldn’t get very far in those two hours, and doing a course on a tape or in a school, and being a working professional, also was just not going to work for me.”
He needed something different. Something that would not only allow him to learn on his own time, but that would also provide the same hands-on experience of a classroom. And then an acquaintance recommended Pluralsight’s training courses – after giving it a shot, Duncan was hooked.
His goal was to develop software for other nutritionists, which eventually turned into the business he runs today called Food Zone. Recently, Food Zone reached its first 1000 customers, but like most successful projects, it crashed and burned before it ever took off. This meant that Duncan had to go back to the drawing board. He was now on the hunt for another developer to work on the existing code. But he had trouble finding one who was willing to finish what someone else had already started.
This put Duncan in a tough position, having to decide whether or not to scrap the entire project or to start over from scratch. “So I ended up having to start again and hire a local developer in Sydney, and I really just didn’t want to make those same mistakes of, kind of, not understanding it at all.” This is when he started watching videos on Pluralsight, beginning with .NET.
“So, yeah, when I was watching those videos, it was really watch the video, make the website, watch a whole bunch of how-to-do’s, Bootstrap, and so forth … So they were really useful in learning to do that – to make the website and the front-end stuff. ” With his newfound knowledge and insight, Duncan’s project survived.
Taking courses through Pluralsight has helped Duncan get a firm handle on his software projects, but he doesn’t want it to end there. Instead, he hopes to become even more involved. “It’s definitely moving across now to the point where I really enjoy that, some of the actual development side. So the next projects we’re working on, I’m absolutely contributing to those.”
Duncan says that when he first took on the development part of this project he was totally intimidated. “Entirely intimidated. Hey, I’m still blown away at the entire system, in part learning to code because, yeah, I happen to like it, you know, and at the moment I’m really sitting between two worlds … so the upkeep of both development and nutrition are both really heavy maintenance subjects.”
He likes Pluralsight for several reasons including the fact that it’s so affordable. “That’s probably one of the bonuses. It does have a lot of current stuff, it’s not too expensive, and it’s heaps of stuff around the .NET framework. That would be my big pluses for it.” Duncan says that he finds Pluralsight’s content so much easier to learn, as opposed to one-on-one training sessions. Above all, he appreciates the video format, noting that it’s much easier to obtain information this way than it is with text-based lessons.
“I think you’d really want to make sure that you want to do it. It depends where you want to go. Like if you just want to make WordPress sites, I think jump in, go for it. You won’t take very long to get up and running … but if you want to get into actually making web applications … it’s not something you can just pick up in 3-6 months.”
A little patience can go a long way, especially when you’re tackling it all on your own. Duncan says it took him six to 12 months to get comfortable with the back-end work. Right now, he’s really enjoying the creative end of being a developer – mainly, being able to make something useful for other people.
Like Duncan, others have seen success with Pluralsight. See Dave’s story here. Do you have a story to share about how you’ve used Pluralsight training to boost your career? Tell us by completing the form below, and you could win a free month of training!
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