Catching up with Programming

[The Dark Knight]

Alright, so earlier I used to dabble in a lot of XHTML and CSS as well as some basic PHP.

Also did some C++ and Java back in the day, but haven't touched that in a very long time and don't plan to.

I'm considering diving into web programming again, even though I won't really be considering it as something to help me out in the future, but I've noticed that programming and generally keeping it as a hobby is a good way to keep your brain sharp, and I've been getting a little lazy lately.

So the basic question here is, what's up lately? I remember Ruby on Rails being the craze a while ago, but I don't see too many people dabbling in it now, has it gone past? Is ASP still considered Eww and everyone's sticking to PHP?

I think it would be interesting for me to develop some web applications, perhaps some applications for Android or iOS, I'm still a little unsure about where to take it, so I'm asking what you lot would recommend. What do you think is useful to pick up today, what languages make sense to pick today considering where app development is headed?

[RedBassett]

I would personally recommend PHP, as it is rather simple to begin with (or begin again with). I can't recommend ASP, as I am a Mac/Linux user and can't run it (though PHP will run on almost anything).

I have a large number of people telling my to get away from PHP however, since it is a template-ing language. If you want to do some more powerful non-web coding, Python is the current craze. I don't like it much, but it is very widely used, and can be used to generate web applications if you like.

PHP is my personal favourite, however Python is the current fad. As for non-web, Java is a language I like, though it is a bit over-powered for smaller projects. (Note that both Python and Java can be used to generate webpages)

[The Dark Knight]

And what's the deal with Android and iOS application development?

[RedBassett]

Depends on what you want to do. Native apps for Android can be Java or C, while native iOS apps need to be Objective C and Cocoa. If you want to do webapps though, they are just fancy webpages.

[The Dark Knight]

Hmm, I don't think I want to dive into the whole C/Java thing again, that's for hardcore programming enthusiasts and those days for me are gone, I didn't pursue that.

I think I'll stick to some basic web development in that case and play around with projects online that can be easily shared and I can get reviews on and get people to use. ;D

[RedBassett]

Webpages and webapps are much easier to start with. Remember that these days many webapps are just as powerful as desktop applications (and even have advantages sometimes).

As for what to use, PHP is probably the best if you don't want to get into non-web languages. (Though if you do, Python is much lighter and easier to learn than C/Java)

[The Dark Knight]

Yeah, sounds good. Just what I was thinking. Alright then, now that that's sorted.

What editor is trending these days? I remember eType, Notepad++ and all doing the rounds. I think even TypePad was fairly robust. I'm on Windows btw.

And no, I'm going to stay away from Dreamweaver if I can help it.

[RedBassett]

I can't recommend windows software, as I am a mac user for my dev environments, however if you ever use a mac, Textmate is a wonderful and powerful little application!

Good to avoid dreamweaver. I used to use it because I always have access to a copy, however a dedicated raw-text editor is better for most. Dreamweaver was great for file managment, but the WYSIWYG editor often gets in the way

[The Dark Knight]

Okay, I think I'm going to go with something like InType, I like the software I program in to be a little aesthetically pleasing.

[Charles Stover]

May 13, 2012 5:49:15 GMT -8 The Dark Knight said:

Is ASP still considered Eww and everyone's sticking to PHP?

This is weird to hear. PHP has always been considered "Eww." People just use it because it's so popular. So, yeah, it's still good to use, if you want to be employed, or not be the only person who uses the language you learn.

Also, new is HTML5 and CSS3. Have a looksee into them.

[RedBassett]

May 13, 2012 13:35:37 GMT -8 Charles Stover said:

Also, new is HTML5 and CSS3. Have a looksee into them.

I forgot this part. Depending on when you learned HTML, this may have some big changes for you.

[The Dark Knight]

May 13, 2012 13:35:37 GMT -8 Charles Stover said:

May 13, 2012 5:49:15 GMT -8 The Dark Knight said:

Is ASP still considered Eww and everyone's sticking to PHP?

This is weird to hear. PHP has always been considered "Eww." People just use it because it's so popular. So, yeah, it's still good to use, if you want to be employed, or not be the only person who uses the language you learn.

Also, new is HTML5 and CSS3. Have a looksee into them.

Yeah, I just saw an Apress book on HTML5 and CSS3, should be interesting.

And the PHP vs ASP thing was around because ASP was primarily a Microsoft technology (still is?) and everyone was talking about how PHP is the bomb, is better supported and has a wider programmer base on the internet.

[RedBassett]

May 13, 2012 18:55:53 GMT -8 The Dark Knight said:

May 13, 2012 13:35:37 GMT -8 Charles Stover said:

This is weird to hear. PHP has always been considered "Eww." People just use it because it's so popular. So, yeah, it's still good to use, if you want to be employed, or not be the only person who uses the language you learn.

Also, new is HTML5 and CSS3. Have a looksee into them.

Yeah, I just saw an Apress book on HTML5 and CSS3, should be interesting.

And the PHP vs ASP thing was around because ASP was primarily a Microsoft technology (still is?) and everyone was talking about how PHP is the bomb, is better supported and has a wider programmer base on the internet.

ASP is a Microsoft product. It will not run on anything else.

[Jordan]

May 13, 2012 13:35:37 GMT -8 Charles Stover said:

May 13, 2012 5:49:15 GMT -8 The Dark Knight said:

Is ASP still considered Eww and everyone's sticking to PHP?

This is weird to hear. PHP has always been considered "Eww." People just use it because it's so popular. So, yeah, it's still good to use, if you want to be employed, or not be the only person who uses the language you learn.

Also, new is HTML5 and CSS3. Have a looksee into them.

Yeah, PHP is actually slow, but it's just so easy to use and has such a big user base that people use it a lot. Applications can be built very quickly with it, and it should be fine for whatever you are wanting to do. However, for companies like Facebook who have a lot of page requests, PHP was too slow and so they developed HipHop which transforms their PHP code into highly optimized C++ code which they then can compile. Not surprisingly, they started running at 50% more efficiency which is ridiculous if you think about the scale Facebook is on. PHP is interpreted by a virtual machine whereas C++ gets compiled straight to native code that the processor can grind through quickly.

Most people don't use ASP because it's Microsoft, and I highly recommend not wasting your time on it. Python on the other hand may be worth your time because it's useful in a lot of ways other than web development. However, I'd recommend you continue learning Javascript because it has just become so powerful. Yes, it's only for the client side so you'll need to know a server-side language, but you really need to know Javascript these days to make a successful web application in my opinion. I should add that I personally believe that it's going to get to the point where you can just write your game or application completely in Javascript. This means you won't need to learn the API for each mobile phone because you will be able to write it once with Javascript and then run it through each phone's web browser. This is obviously already being done with a lot of applications, but not to the extent that I'm referring to.

By the way, I know you have decided to go with web development which is a good idea, I thought I'd just let you know a little bit about the mobile market since you asked and give you some options that you may be interested in.

If you are simply wanting to create some basic applications, then yes, you'll need to go get familiar with the API's provided by each operating system by taking a look at the documentation provided, but if you are interested in making some simple games or even some complex games, you should take a look at some game engines. You can download the UDK for free and develop a game which can be ported to PC or the iOS by a click of the button. If you want to make money off of the game, you can earn up to 50,000 dollars without any royalty fees, but after that they will start taking out 25% for royalties. And since you aren't a big programmer, you can make some decent games without even touching their UnrealScript because of kismet which is their virtual scripting system.

I should include that if you do want to sell your application there are some fees included, but that's to be expected. As for Android, there's the Unity engine, but you have to pay 400 dollars up front to have the ability to port any of your games to the Android operating system (same with iOS). However, there is a free version of Unity that you can get started with and a lot of people prefer Unity over the UDK for mobile development. A big reason is because if you want to port a game to Android on the UDK you have to buy the UE3 license (which gives you access to the full source of the UnrealEngine, i.e. the C++), and that's expensive compared to Unity.

There's a lot of other game engines out there, but I won't go into them unless you'd like me to. The others will require scripting. I think UDK would be fun for you though, since you can do a ridiculous amount of work visually in their editor. It's crazy.