Actually I talked to a few programmers already and no one ever has given me the advice to start with SQL. That's actually a tragedy, and I've been guilty of no

Actually I talked to a few programmers already and no one ever has given me the advice to start with SQL. That's actually a tragedy, and I've been guilty of not recommending SQL first, myself. Part of the problem is that SQL by itself is not flashy. It doesn't have a web interface that you'd like to show to anyone (you'd need HTML/CSS/JS skills for that). And once you build your database you generally can't just tell the public to connect to it over the Web -- you need some kind of server layer for that, written in PHP or Ruby or Java or C# or another of the usual suspects. So starting your web development career by learning SQL is like learning to fence by spending the first year doing legwork exercises, never picking up a sword until the second year. But, as my fencing instructor once told me: That's what many elite European fencing schools used to require of their apprentice fencers. [1] And it wouldn't hurt at all to approach web development the same way. Learn the heart of the matter first, and save the ephemera for later. If you can compose a sensible data model (that you can drive using SQL queries from the command line or -- plug your ears, fellow Linux coders! -- Microsoft Access), you'll have a better understanding of the underlying technology of web apps than a surprising number of professional developers. And you're a biz dev guy, so anything you can learn about databases will probably be a win for your C.V. Just be careful: If the word gets out at your company that you can wrangle SQL queries, you might become very popular among the other MBAs. --- [1] They should have required it of me. As a fencer, I moved like a dump truck with one wheel missing. But it sure was fun swinging the sword around ineffectively! I swished through a lot of air!