I started teaching myself html around 7th or 8th grade. I had my own ridiculous website, and put that baby together from scratch. None of this Wordpress stuff. I was mostly stealing ideas from other websites, and using resources like Webmonkey.
For whatever reason, I didn't keep up with it. I don't know, Deadjournal & Livejournal came around, and it was so much easier to blog. Maybe I'll also place the blame on my high school for not providing any classes, or mentors, that maybe could have shown me that not only do I enjoy this, I could make a career out of it.
But, it is, of course, never too late. I'm drawn to librarianship because (a) I can still use my law degree for something I enjoy, (b) libraries and librarians are awesome for a million reasons, and (c) there's a huge emphasis on technology, programming, and all that good stuff, which I'm excited to get back into. I've helped create a few websites for bands and businesses, mainly using WordPress, but I really want to be able to have a lot more control over what I create.
I've been going through courses on Codecademy, for now focusing on front-end web development (although I'm sure I'll explore other avenues in the future). I brushed up on my html, and went through all the courses on CSS and JQuery (which I found particularly fun). I'm not working my way through the JavaScript courses. I can already tell that this is only providing me with some basic basic information, but I do like the interactive setup. I think the most important part is remembering that I REALLY enjoy doing this stuff. It makes my brain happy, like synapses that haven't fired in way too long are finally getting some activity.
After I get through the JavaScript series, I'm hoping to try out some free courses with Udacity, and perhaps edX. More than anything, I think I just need to start building something, and I will. Once I figure out what that is. I think I'm over-thinking it. Oh! I do know. I'm going to make a professional website for myself, with an interactive resume, list of projects, all that fantastic stuff.
I'm hoping this will all go better than that time I tried to teach myself French, which was fun, but I couldn't stay focused on it after a couple months. I feel like there are a lot more resources on programming, though, as well as way more opportunity for me to practice the language.
Mostly for my own records, here are some other helpful resources I am currently using and/or I'd like to check out in the future:
learn programming subreddit (obviously)
Alright, time to get some silly paid work done. But, well, maybe one day I'll get paid to have fun with JavaSccript. Working on it.
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
andulkaphoto