I am an former scientist and current programmer. I started programming in Fortran during my PhD, and then moved on to web pages as a second income. It was then that I discovered how dauntingly different non-academic coding is, but also how much more satisfying.
I focused on web development for a number of years, teaching myself PHP, MySQL, jQuery (and JavaScript where the easy route wasn’t possible) as well as taking a range of taught courses in various aspects of software development. I also ended up learning a whole lot about WordPress (it paid the rent).
I have spent the last year designing and building iOS mobile apps and have a number of completed and ongoing projects. I am hoping to continue in this field, as it is far more involved, varied, and fun than web design. I am also looking to code Android apps, once I see a break in the iOS work.