Welcome

Welcome to my Becoming a Programmer website.

My name is Deon Slabbert, and I am a Fullstack Software Developer.

I have been a full-time, Fullstack software developer now for the last 38+ years,
and I hope to teach you how to become a Fullstack software developer as well.

I build Line-of-Business applications, also known as Enterprise applications,
and as such, my focus will be on these types of applications.
I will most probably call them Business Information Systems as I find that to be a good descriptive term for these types of applications.

So what exactly is a Fullstack software developer?

Fullstack Software Developer Defined

Business Information Systems typically consist of three layers,
the User Interface Layer, the Business Logic Layer, and the Persistence Layer.

User Interface Layer

The User Interface Layer is typically the part of the application the user interacts with.
If you decide to buy something online, you will use the Amazon website, for example.
Everything on that website you see and interact with,
like typing search criteria or clicking buttons, is called the User Interface.

Now, for most users, the User Interface is the application,
as they don't know or care what happens behind the scenes when they click a button.

Business Logic Layer

Then there is the Business Logic Layer which is not visible to the user.
This is the behind the scenes part of the app where the number crunching takes place.
The better name for the number crunching is Business Logic.
In our Amazon example, this is where the shopping cart is filled with items and order totals are calculated.
Now, it is important that this shopping cart with its items is not getting lost once the user closes the browser.
Say hello to the database!

Persistence Layer

The Database Layer or Persistence Layer represents the section where all transaction data is stored for future retrieval and manipulation.
This is also the most important section of the Business Information System because this section represents the so-called source-of-truth of the business.
Without the data, there is no business.

Skills Required

For each of these Business Information System layers, you need different skill sets.
So, starting with the Persistence Layer, then the Business Logic Layer,
and finally the User Interface Layer, I teach you everything you need to know for each of these layers.

I start from the assumption that you have never written a single line of code before.
From there we keep moving forwards, one step at a time.
We keep linking new information to existing knowledge, which will speed up the learning process substantially.
I call that associative learning.

Now I know that this is an ambitious goal,
but I will do my very best to keep adding to the existing content in an orderly fashion.

Let's now see how this website is organized.
You will see that there are two types of posts, namely Course and Snippet posts.

Snippet Posts

In these posts, you will find code snippets.
The code snippets will be mainly in Java, C#, SQL, HTML, CSS & JavaScript.
These code snippets are sample code that I find useful in my day-to-day job, and I use it as a quick reference.
But because I often use it, It may be of help to you too.

Course Posts

This is the main body of knowledge.
Here you will find everything you need to know to become a Fullstack Software Developer one step at a time.
The layout is designed to help you not skip a single step.
You start at the very top and work your way down.

Finally, why should you listen to me?
I will discuss that in the next post.