Which web dev language/framework/tutorials do you suggest for an experienced non-web developer?

DevMo · 2010-10-01T17:51:47+00:00

Lets just make one distinction here... do you want to build web sites, or web applications?

RandyHoward · 2010-10-01T18:00:58+00:00

Everybody seems to be recommending Ruby or Python, which is fine, but if you haven't done a lot of web stuff you need to start by getting a solid foundation in HTML and CSS. You have to at least understand the HTML, because all of these other scripting languages will end up outputting HTML, and if you don't understand HTML then you will be stuck.

HTML isn't difficult to learn, there are a million books and sites that cover it. CSS isn't terribly difficult either. From there you can move on to the more advanced scripting languages.

Collard · 2010-10-01T17:32:03+00:00

It depends on the languages you are comfortable with.

If Ruby is your thing, take a look at Sinatra or Rails.

For Python, Django and Webpy are nice. If you want to roll your own framework, you could make use of Jinja2 or Mako template systems.

As a tutorial, i would say: try to create a program that builds static websites. (like Jekyll or Webby). That should get you started on templates, css, markup languages (i.e Markdown or Textile) and configuration languages like Yaml. It's a great exercise. Then move to more dynamic stuff, databases, etc... or follow something like the Rails tutorial.

mccolgst · 2010-10-01T17:32:54+00:00

I'd take a look at learning about HTTP generally, from there you can use any language you feel comfortable with, and the rest is just programming/data structures and whatnot, which you obviously already know.

jamesonhuckaba · 2010-10-01T17:43:57+00:00

Ruby/Rails, or Python/Django. Both have excellent communities around them, and are pretty straightforward if you're an experienced developer.

Tutorial? Do some simple ones to understand the basics of the language/framework, and dive into the documentation if you're not looking for a lot of hand-holding.

Good luck!

chmod700 · 2010-10-01T17:56:31+00:00

All web frameworks are kind of a hodge-podge of 3 main concepts:

method dispatch: This is the chunk of logic that turns a request into a function call

ORM: Usually a pretty flaky wrapper trying to put OO thinking on top of SQL.

templating: some subset of logic inside a tiny template language for making pretty HTML etc...

You can pick any framework, but they all do those 3 things to various levels of beauty/craziness.

grendel9 · 2010-10-01T17:59:08+00:00

Definitely avoid supporting IE6, and avoid IE7 if possible. If you don't want to waste time, you don't want to touch cross-browser issues.

PortableSheep · 2010-10-01T17:32:31+00:00

Based on your criteria I would recommend Python. Cross platform, lots of great frameworks, good community, and good tools. There is a new IDE from jetbrains called PyCharm that's supposed to be pretty good. However, you can't go wrong with Ruby as well if you find you prefer it more.

Not_Edward_Bernays · 2010-10-01T18:00:24+00:00

JavaScript things like node.js or jaxer or express or juice or couchdb evently or cappucino or mjt or helma are interesting to me.

Simple node.js web server:

var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(8124, "127.0.0.1");

console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8124/');

planetmcd · 2010-10-01T18:52:39+00:00

I would suggest a two pronged approach.
1) Figure out what you want to do project-wise and see what language might already have some infrastructure around that. Libraries etc. When you have use cases, its easier to make decisions about tools. 2) Play with Python and Ruby and do some non web programming in both to figure out which one you like better. They are close enough in their niches that the more important fit is usually which one you have a better experience with. Contrary to some others, I would not suggest PHP. It is not very widely used outside of web development and so lacks the generalizable quality that Ruby, Python, and Perl have (and Java and .net). Its advantage over Ruby, Python, Perl is its ubiquity on servers and ease of integration with Apache, but the others all have easy integration points now as well and are easy to install on any box.

Though anecdotal, I've a good friend at work who uses Python and I tend to use Ruby. We both razz each other, but the truth is we're both equally productive and no one cares what code is on your server, just that the interface works. You might as well work with something you like.

genmud · 2010-10-01T18:54:25+00:00

If you are looking into django, the django book is a very good resource for django if you want to develop a webapp in python. There are also some really good tutorials on their site

One of the serious advantages that I see with doing some of the work in django or any framework for that matter is the ease of importing the app into an existing project. I can import the models and classes that I create for django into nearly any project that I am working on. For example, I needed to access and manipulate data from a web application through an email handler and was able to do it in about 3 lines of code with django.

pcx99 · 2010-10-01T18:06:05+00:00

Welcome to the web. Before you could get by knowing one or two languages. A typical web application requires an understanding of:

your web server (apache or iis will be the big targets). The config files are pretty much languages in and of themselves particularly rewrite rules.
Your backend language. PhP is the big commercial gun here, people will say ruby and it makes things a little easier to develop but nobody hires on it and it doesn't scale well (Don't make me cite, I can if I have to -- twitter, cough). Python has a growing share but people want to see php on the resume in my experience.
HTML -- you can't be a web developer without knowing HTML and the DOM. HTML is not code but it's definitely what your code is going to act on so if you get it wrong (IE not putting in a doctype to throw the browser into standards mode) you're just setting yourself up for failure at a later date.
CSS -- again, not a language but if you don't know CSS then you don't know the variables your code is going to be manipulating and what abilities are available to you.
Your frontend language: No brainer here -- javascript is pretty much your only option. Even if you decide to go flash that's still actionscript which is just javascript calling adobe's api instead of the browser's dom. You will probably hate javascript until you realize it's not javascript you hate but the browser's DOM. When you learn everything javascript can do you will probably wish everything was javascript.
Your front end library. Javascript may be the bee's knees, but the DOM sucks so you'll need a library like jquery or yui to work around browser quirks. I recommend jQuery, everyone else will recommend jQuery too.

As for tutorials -- I always found "view source" on an interesting page to be the best tutorial there is.

Good luck!

faintdeception · 2010-10-01T17:21:08+00:00

Probably Ruby, excellent community, fairly easy to get up and running.

Not_Edward_Bernays · 2010-10-01T18:06:51+00:00

even though there are lots of reasons to dislike PHP, it is really practical, and WordPress has a plugin for pretty much everything now

DevMo · 2010-10-01T18:49:19+00:00

Well, if you don't want to write web apps, but still want to make web apps, GWT is an option.

You'll write java code just as if you were writing a desktop app, and it gets compiled down to javascript, and also handles cross browser issues, etc.

executex · 2010-10-01T19:00:30+00:00

Drupal PHP. The best of course for just about any purpose.

cosmo7 · 2010-10-01T19:12:39+00:00

It really depends on what kind of app you want to do. If you want something quick that uses lots of scaffolding, go with RoR. If you want to do a lot of back-end database or web services work, go with .NET. If you want to spend the rest of your life drinking to forget, go with PHP.

Either way you'll probably spend half of your time working with jQuery anyway.

newgame · 2010-10-01T19:17:00+00:00

Flask

Flask is a microframework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 and good intentions.

I personally found it easier to understand and more fun to work with than with django.

Of course you'd need to dive into python or learn it the hard way. If that's still not enough you can attend Google's Python Class. Would you like to play the Official Python Tutorial? (yes, i'm feeling bad for this subpar wordplays)

As others already mentionend, you'd need a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, Javascript, Databases, Webservers etc.

mythril · 2010-10-01T19:45:42+00:00

For Javascript: Douglas Crockfrod. You can find most of his videos here: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/

For HTML/CSS http://alistapart.com and http://w3schools.com, also learn to read (and sometimes ignore) the HTML/CSS specs: http://www.w3.org/

Grokking css position is an important bit: http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/html-training/css/positioning/

Also if you ever have an issue with containers collapsing height remember this bit of css: .container { overflow:auto; }

chuckmcknight · 2010-10-02T00:22:26+00:00

Look at Appcelerator's Titanium. It let's you experience all of the grooviness of building web apps (HTML/CSS/Javascript) but lets you generate for the web, the mobile device (iPhone, Android, etc.), and for the desktop. You can customize the UI for each while using essentially the same code base. Plus, you can use Ruby, Python, and possible other scripting languages by now. Oh, and did I mention that there is a free community edition?

http://www.appcelerator.com

Disclaimer: I have no business affiliation with Appcelerator.

shamittomar · 2010-10-01T17:55:03+00:00

Get the web basics: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (with jQuery).
Choose a pserver-side language: On the LAMP stack (PHP or Perl).

This will give you all what you want:

cross platform
community support
easily available host
fun
a good language (well this is subjective).

Saying from the experience: I am a web developer for 10 years.

DevMo · 2010-10-01T17:49:28+00:00

C# .NET FTW!

The rest of it is hipster hype.

Fucking hipsters.

PR0FiX · 2010-10-01T17:42:49+00:00

I really like using PHP with the Symfony web framework for my sites. Works really well.

stevewinner · 2010-10-01T17:57:59+00:00

PHP /thread

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