I want to go learn web programming,but besides names and a little of html I don't know anything.So I ask you what programming languages you recommend,why,what can be done with it,tools to learn ,etc.I don't know if it matters but I program in a Linux enviroment(Ubuntu).
I don't want to do hardcore web programming ,I only want to be able to develop complete websites and understand network concepts.
Well, most cheap/free web hosts support PHP, MySQL, and most browsers support Javascript.
Target those and you'll be on a reasonably good path.
Some support Ruby and Python, and you might choose that path if you want to learn those languages.
Good luck!
-Adam
Definitely start with HTML, and basic CSS. These are the core of web programming, and you need to understand them well to do anything of consequence.
Once you've got those down, you'll want to move on to a server-side language. The easiest is PHP, but be careful of picking up bad habits, since it's a loose environment; if you stick with PHP, you'll eventually want to use it with an MVC framework such as CodeIgniter, which encourage separating presentation and logic. To get a little more advanced, you can also try Python or Ruby. Get yourself some server space to mess around with; most shared hosting plans are $5-10/month.
For Javascript/AJAX, you'll probably want to start by using Firebug or Firefox's DOM inspector to learn the relationship between the HTML of a page and the DOM object which Javascript uses to interact with it. Once you understand how the DOM works, toy around with jQuery to start doing useful (and fun!) stuff.
You'll also eventually want to learn MySQL (or a similar SQL variant), but that can probably wait, since you can do lots of interesting things without tackling database stuff.
Above all, be patient and persistent, and make use of every resource at your disposal: books, Google, Stack Overflow, and cheat sheets.
Ruby all the way. It's exactly what you need if you're interested in web dev and completely starting from scratch programming-wise. From the basics of Ruby it's pretty easy to get into Rails, which is a very beginner-friendly web framework.
Many great books on Amazon (look for the highest rated of course) on both Ruby and Rails.
Great starting point for links:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/
As well check out Learn to Program
Now get learnin'.
Google App Engine offers free hosting for applications that do not exceed the specified limits. The server-side language is Python, the client-side language is JavaScript inside Django templates. Everything has worked nicely for me in Ubuntu 8.10.
GREAT Question,
a couple of years ago I was in the same place -
What HONESTLY Helped me was using Dreamweaver, I set it in split mode and started watching the code
I used this and started delving into the PHP Application world and could see what was going on (sort of)
I know you can use dreamweaver with wine on the linux, and it can help you do a TON
granted if you continue it has the potential to limit you to the dreamweaver world... but can help you learn and create at the same time
(I build full php apps from scratch now with a notepad... but I started with DW)
The question I'd have is what kind of scale on web programming are you wanting to do? If it is small stuff then the LAMP stack would be my suggestion while if you want to get more into 3-tier architecture then Java or ASP.Net may be worth getting into for middleware or business logic code.
With the exception of the reference to the LAMP stack above, there has been no Perl recommendations. I like Perl as it is easy enough to build a fairly full featured web application (using CGI, or mod_perl). Of course, you are going to have to learn HTML/CSS if you are going to do anything on the web. I feel Perl is a good choice for web development as it is fairly robust and full featured with all of the modules available on CPAN. Combine with an application framework like CGI::Application or Catalyst and you can build sophisticated web apps in a short amount of time. Also, using a tool like XAMPP can help as you won't have to worry about web server or database cofigurations to get started.
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my name is Tabetha and I have a question...
I am a web designer, but I always find that while designing the layout and coding the design I come up with great ideas for websites. I would like to know where I need to start in order to learn back-end programming not only for the knowledge, but also for the challenge of it.
I have searched online but can't seem to find the information I am looking for. If anyone can give me a simple, straight-forward "this is what language you need to learn" answer, or perhaps guide me in the right direction I would appreciate it ten-fold.
I am a complete noob when it comes to this, so even the most basic information is probably a pearl of wisdom for me. :)
With this type of question you will never one simple, straight-forward answer :) Are you a Mac person? If so, you'll probably want to learn PHP or Ruby on Rails for server-side programming, along with MySQL for your database. These technologies are widely used on other operating systems, including Windows. The Apache web server and PHP is included in Mac OS X; Rails is easy to set up. Most hosting providers will offer cheap LAMP hosting packages (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) (Google "LAMP tutorial")
If you're a PC person, you might want to learn about .NET (VB or C#), SQL Server and IIS. There are many similarities in the development practices between the different technologies, with MVC being the recommended design pattern. Understanding MVC is important.
There are many other "back-end" technologies, including JAVA, ColdFusion, etc, but PHP/MySQL is the most common.
You could also learn about server-side content management systems, like Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla to name a few. These systems take care of much of the low level data handling, leaving you to focus more on the content and appearance, while sacrificing some flexibility.
Good luck!
Just to add my two cents. Programming language is in reality not as important as having general knowledge of the principles. Look at it this way: knowing how to program is the same as knowing how to design. Programming language is then only a tool, like photoshop, that you can excel in, but it won't make you a designer by itself.
The concepts that are important for web back-end development and actually a must-know if you're in for a challenge, are object-oriented programming, separation of presentation and computational logic, database abstraction, networking protocols (http specifically).
Understanding these essentials will pay off greatly as compared to learning the quick-and-dirty ways of combining php with html.
PHP is probably the most commonly used backend end language, and will probably give the least problems when setting it up in a server. I would recommend using a Framework (at least to start), both for ease of use and security issues. For this I'd recommend the Zend Framework. There's a great tutorial for getting started here: http://www.survivethedeepend.com/.
I am a heavy advocate of .NET languages for beginners. The .NET framework is nice and easy to wrap your head around because Microsoft is great with documentation, tutorials, and giving a complete package.
As you already have knowledge of HTML I would look into ASP .NET or ASP .NET MVC. This website from Microsoft will take you from start to finish in developing a website in ASP .NET and ASP .NET MVC.
Once you start programming with Visual Studio you will see how easy Microsoft makes it for you.
To get you started with backend development, i would suggest u learn how a database (db) works and the various database management systems (DBMS), particularly relational DBMS (RDBMS) such as MySQL, SQL server, oracle, postGRESQL, Microsoft Access, etc. You will come 2 know that most DBMS allow u to communicate with them and issues commands to them by speaking to them a language called Structured Query Language (SQL). So u will need to invest some time to learn the basics of speaking the SQL language to create a database, store new data or modify existing data, fetch data from the db, or even delete data that is no longer needed from your db. In particular i suggest u learn how MySQL works and issuing commands to MySQL since it is the most widely used DBMS in most web projects. Then, you will need to spend some time to learn about computer programming (issuing instructions to computer) and programming languages (the languages used for writing the instructions). You can zero down to learning how to speak a particular computer language such as PHP. The reason u have to learn how programming languages work is that u will need to speak a computer language (programming language) to write the logic for interacting with your database (e.g verifying that some conditions hold true before certain data can be fetched). I suggest u start by learning the PHP language as your backend programming language, since it is the most widely used in web projects. In the programming langnuage u have chosen to learn (e.g php), find out how to issue SQL commands to a RDBMS from that language. In summary, i recommend you learn the combination of PHP and MySQL since this combination is the most widely used for backend web development. But once u get a grasp of how things really work, you can always switch to whatever combination of technologies works best for your particular project. I hope this helps.
I've looked around some of the asked questions and I noticed many questions dealing with THE best web application language. I'm curious into looking into a combination of web application languages, possibly some that would compliment each other well. At the moment my list of possible web app languages at the moment are:
PHP
Ruby on Rails
JavaScript
AJAX (not really a language on its own)
Grails
I know that certain ones like JavaScript and AJAX work well together but I'm curious about the rest. What about PHP and JavaScript? Does Rails play well with others? Is looking to use a combination of languages even a possibility? I know that some may be used for different kinds of applications but I would like to focus on more than just 1 of them. Thanks for the help. Any and all comments are appreciated.
You are mixing everything up.
PHP and RoR (Ruby on Rails) are server-sided scripting technologies (and Rails is not really a programming language). They can generate content that is served to the user (ie: HTML files), but they can do a lot more. You NEED a server-side language if you want to interact with your users (ie: allow them to leave comments, and etc.).
Javascript (and AJAX, partially) on the other hand runs completely on the client side. You'll mainly use JS and Ajax to improve user experience, but remember to code your site in such a way it works even if JS is off.
Generally, as a complement to your server-side scripts you need a database, and among them the most popular ones are relational DB's that support SQL (Structured Query Language), like MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, etc.
So, what's the "best" combination for you? It really depends. Hosting with PHP+MySQL is widely available and it's cheap, and PHP has a massive user community, and many freely available libraries and frameworks for you to use. So if you are just getting into web development, I'd suggest starting with PHP+MySQL.
Rails is not a language, it's a framework. Ruby is the language.
Grails is not a language, it's a framework. The language is Groovy.
Ajax is not a language, it's a marketing term coined to describe DHTML, which was a marketing term coined to describe using JavaScript to manipulate DOM elements and styles.
Regardless if it's PHP and Python, Perl and Java, JavaScript and Erlang, you can use any languages together depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
If you're looking for something learn, I'd say JavaScript (and get down and dirty and really learn it... don't rely on a framework as a crutch) because it's the primary front-end language in the web-world. But that's just my preference.
If you could give us a little more insight into what you're working on then maybe someone can give you a better suggestion of languages to pair up.
A programming language is just a means of achieving a goal, hence the focus should always be on the goal. Just as human languages the goal is communication, hence the languages is relatively not important.
Javascript is client side scripting language, while rest of the things that you have mentioned are serverside scripting languages. No matter what server side language you use you would have to use Javascript for client side scripting.
The rest of the 3 languages are opensource languages. Personally I would choose the most popular technology because
a. There is a big community, which ensures that the technology is widely adapted because I would like other third party applications gelling well with my application.
b. Lesser no. of flaws, since someone or the other would report it and the community would try to fix.
c. Dynamic future release: Since the community would like to see feature which are there is some competitive technology they would always want to add the feature. An excellent technology which has very less community built around it dies its own death since there are no future release and slowly it falls behind the competition.
The next important criteria would be is the tech really suits my application. Like if I am using a very slow embedded system processor, I cannot use python I will have to use C.
Well in all above cases I personally love PHP. PHP has some of the best CMS s/w, which makes life easy and there is lots of code available for free and widely adapted by even enterprises.
I want to start building websites and charging people for them!
My problem is that the stack that know well does not lend itself to quick development, or cheap hosting.
I am looking for languages that satisfy the following criteria:
Fast to develop in
Can find cheap hosting for it
Bonus points if it can also be 'enterprisey'
Fast to develop in: When building a web application, what makes a language quick to develop in is a framework. Some languages that have a very robust web application framework include: Java, Ruby, PHP, Python.
Can find cheap hosting for it: PHP is probably the most ubiquitous language in terms of web hosting support. More web hosts are adding support for Ruby and Python frameworks such as Rails and Django, though.
Bonus points if it can also be 'enterprisey': Not quite sure what you mean by that. But for some reason Java comes to mind.
Use a framework such as drupal
I have done a few sites on the side as well and have wanted cheap hosting, speedy development etc.
I ended up just using GAE simply because:
You can use either Python/Java (both are widely used)
You can used current web frameworks (Django etc.)
It's free hosting (until the site starts hitting the free quota limits)
Deployment is easy
One downside could be that you're tied to BigTable so if you wanted to move your site to something else you might have some work there.
(I'm not advocating for GAE, just have used it for a few sites and it has worked pretty good for what was required)
I'd recommend PHP. It's well supported, quick to learn, and relatively common among small web hosts.
Your requirements are super-vague... But to recommend something different, try out the Ruby on Rails - it is really fast, can get enterprisey and there is at least heroku.com for hosting.
Let me introduce myself a bit.
I have 7 years of C++ (most MFC) experience, 1 year C#.NET and 2 years Java experience.
I know little about web application, what I did and am doing is Windows desktop applications.
I start to do some (minor) (freelance) side projects in the past half year and uses C# mostly as it's more "rapid" than MFC. But seems there's more web projects in this market than desktop projects. And I do not feel good as long as I do not know web development.
So, should I touch the new web filed for me or just stay focus in desktop application but learn more e.g Python, or Frameworks/Libraries such as Qt or Boost?
My gut feeling is that more and more people/companies are moving their projects to the web. My company, for example, has added numerous web applications since I have been there. Another prime example of this is Microsoft (yes, even them) providing a web-based version of Office, their flagship product.
There will always be a need for desktop applications, but I see more web-based projects in the future. It's always good to learn something new, anyway.
EDIT: Oh, and you don't lose anything by being aware of "desktop-based" processes. You may be doing more server-side programming, even if it is web-based. So, in other words, it doesn't hurt to continue expanding your knowledge in that arena, as well.
There will most likely still be a market for desktop applications for many years to come. However, web development seems to have taken over a large share of the development market from what I can see. I would recommend definitely getting familiar with web development as it definitely can't hurt to increase the number of skills you have even if you never stop writing desktop apps.
Since you have experience with C# you might want to consider doing some ASP.NET work. Or if you feel the need to learn a new technology then maybe consider a framework like Ruby on Rails.
I'd really suggest looking into web development - like you said, there are many more web application projects - and you already know C#.NET and Java, and both of those languages have really good API's / frameworks for web development. ASP.NET for C# and Java Servlets/JSPs.
I'd first suggest learning some really basic HTML to learn how pages are rendered, then try to make dynamic versions using the language of your choice. Then I'd learn some other web technologies like CSS/Javascript/some Javascript libraries - then I'd start looking at frameworks that build on top of the basics in the language of your choice.
Oh, and some further suggestions - there are web frameworks that are component-based rather than request-based - you may be tempted to learn these as a shortcut to web development since most claim that developing in them is similar to desktop development. I really wouldn't suggest this - as in practice you really do need to know how the web works at a lower level to develop custom components, include things that the framework doesn't do, or to debug them when things go wrong even when using these frameworks. If you jump right in you can get lost/confused pretty quickly.
Microsoft Office 2010 will have an online version. To me this is a watershed moment for Web applications. Office apps are an important litmus test as once you can do Office on the Web (which has been the case with Google Documents for some time but Office has important symbolic meaning) you can do most things that most users care about.
Desktop apps won't die but I definitely think they're going to take more and more of a backseat.
I'd highly suggest you read How Microsoft Lost the API War if you haven't already. One of the things that's particularly amazing about this post is that it was written in 2004.
I honestly believe that with maybe the exception of OSs and browsers, everything will be a web app within the next 10 years. Having said that, let me clarify that by everything I mean everything that a) involves a UI of some kind and b) can be guaranteed secure.
User-interfaced apps will always at some point need a backend, which will at some level require code that is not being interfaced by humans and not being executed via HTTP. I am always reminding myself that things like 'cat' in Unix are actually programs that the OS is calling, not just a function built into the OS. MySQL won't be a web app (as far as I know), but app that powers web apps. We may get to a point where these apps are fully developed via a web interface, written, audited, uploaded and called all via a browser, but at some level its still running behind the scenes.
On that second point, about guaranteed security, I can very easily imagine a large corporation or government office running 95 percent of their daily routines via web apps, but mandating that certain high-security operations be done on a machine directly interfaced with some sort of mainframe, after passing through the cool doors with the retinal scans and what not. Or simply because they can't risk moving certain mission-critical apps over to the web, from fear of it breaking our losing data in the process.
But with those two things aside, I honestly believe everything will be web-based. With the advancement of Web Services and XML in general, it will be possible to not only access and interact with our data, but to plug our custom apps into another app and extend that interaction further and in any environment we want.
It's like that Apple ad "There's an app for that." Except once people get the real picture, it won't be an app written for your iPhone, but a URL. "There's a site for that."
I recommend learning the Lift framework. It's as easy to use as Rails, and it's based on a statically-typed language for the JVM, Scala. From the perspective of your background, Scala should be middling to easy to learn, and you'll be more likely to be comfortable with it than with a dynamic language.
In my opinion, you have a good chance of picking it up quickly, learn a lot about good practices in web development, and even expanding your programming horizons a bit.
I have a Linux web server and I'd like to make some database tables (currently in Access) available on the web for CRUD. There needs to role-based security. What's the quickest path to develop this?
Also, which database would be best? I already have mySQL running on that box if it makes any difference.
I agree with Chuck, the question shouldn't really be about the language, but about the framework you choose.
I did something similar to you a while back, and ended up using Ruby on Rails, and the activescaffold plugin (http://www.activescaffold.com/) to provide a pretty front end. The actual code I ended up writing was extremely minimal. There are other plugins for Rails which provide role based security too (which I didn't bother with, I just had "you're either logged in and have write access, or you're not logged in and you don't") and which also mean you don't have to write much stuff yourself.
So put me in the camp for Rails come the religious war ;)
Edit: MySQL is a perfect database to use, so you don't have to worry there.
This will turn into a religious war between the Ruby on Rails camp and the Python camp, with a good smattering of the PHP and Perl. You should evaluate the langauges yourself and decide what is best for you. There are, of course, other choices, however listing those would just elicit mroe religious battles. Although, I would say all of those I listed would be reasonable choices. You can usually create a good design in spite of any shortcommings your chosen language may have.
I don't think language is the question you should be asking. There's no language particularly well-suited to CRUD Web apps. There are many frameworks designed for that sort of thing, though, in many different languages, and those are probably what you'll want to look at.
I think Rails is the best in general, and that's what I use for most projects. It's very well-suited to CRUD apps (to the point where it allows you to create a simple one without writing any code at all). But if there really were an undisputed "best" choice, you'd probably already know about it. Instead, some apps are made with Rails, some with Django, some with Cake, and so on and so forth.
If you want a solid, clean, stable CRUD web app that can be maintained and expanded for years to come, stick with the standards: PHP, Perl, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. Learn those roots languages well. Take the time to do it right and focus on good coding habits like clarity, consistency, and organization. Practice good reuse of code, good naming, good commenting, and good database design. Test, document, and refactor. Take pride in the craftsmanship of your CRUD app. Learn it inside and out. Set the stage so you can later maintain and expand it. Your goal is to build something that will work well, last a long time, and make a great return on the business investment. Someone once said that it takes 10 years to become a good coder.
As for frameworks, plugins, and external libraries, that's wonderful icing to put on your cake. But never confuse the icing with the cake. If you want to learn to code, take the time to learn it right. If you're not comfortable coding a simple CRUD app, you'll be even less comfortable trying to navigate the framework-generated code. Coding is a wonderful gig. But never mistake the sizzle for the steak.