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Closed 9 years ago.
In the old, pre-Ruby & Rails days o' the web, one typically used PHP when they needed to add server-side functionality that HTML or CSS could not provide. Nowadays, we have a ton of options for creating super-dynamic websites and applications. I recently discovered that you can just use .erb files on a web server to get the same functionality as throwing PHP files in there in order to make things more dynamic.
I am building my first from-the-ground-up website, which will actually be my own personal website. I'm a huge Ruby nerd, and definitely want to invest in the technologies I'm most learned and familiar with. I want to build with a focus on simplicity, speed, and power in mind. I love Rails, and have had the most training in it, so I am, for the time being (for version 1.0 of my beloved sexy website), excluding Sinatra or other frameworks from my list of choices.
Now, here's the question, which is admittedly a bit ambiguous: when is it appropriate to go from using regular old .erb files to using a full-blown Rails framework? The website won't be processing any users or anything, and will mostly be a portfolio for my art, music, and technology works. I'll be doing a blog with Jekyll, additionally, so that level of dynamic content will be handled separately.
Strait ERB files are great to set up a simple template system. Jekyll is a more robust way to build a simple static site using templates. It's great for a personal site that doesn't have dynamic content, it doesn't work when you have users storing new content constantly to a database, which then needs to be rendered on the fly to a new page. Rails is based on the idea that you need a database, if you don't need it skip Rails and save yourself loading time, hosting costs, and sysadmin headaches.
Also check out https://github.com/laurilehmijoki/jekyll-s3 you can host your site on S3 for dirt cheap.
Related
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Closed 9 years ago.
I need to build a File browser demo by this Friday, which is used to browse mp3 files and display their track info such as artist and title.
I have no experience in both of them, and same amount of experience in Java and C++.
The core functionality is finished in c++. Just need to have a gui to browse , select file and call functions based on selected files.
Which one should I chose? Tutorials are much appreciated. (I know there are lots of them online but I'm not sure which one can let me finish my job in 3-4 days)
Qt is my vote, too.
The examples and info in the links below should get you well on your way to your solution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92biLZST6Vg
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/phonon-qmusicplayer.html
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qfilesystemmodel.html
PS, After installing Qt and Qt Creator, it has fantastic documentation and great examples and tutorials easily accessed from the IDE, on the Welcome tab.
Due to the short time span, I suggest using Qt. Go to the website http://qt.digia.com/Product/Developer-Tools/ and download Qt Creator IDE. It has a nice GUI builder that allows you to drag and drop components in a WYSIWYG editor. Make sure to read about signals and slots in Qt. There are a lot of good tutorials at the website and Qt is well documented. If you work hard at it, you could get your GUI set up and connected to your core code in time. Good luck.
BTW: Qt uses C++ and has additional library of Qt specific objects.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I want to spend the summer getting into web development. I have some basic C++ and Java background. I was told by some people to master HTML & CSS first then Javascript. Then someone else told me that I should go with Grails while another person told me Ruby on Rails. I've always been interested in web development but never had the time to fully learn it and now I have some free time and I'm hoping to hone my skills.
The problem is there are so many platforms and languages that it's quite confusing. I want to eventually create a website and then embark on a tech startup. I'm quite confused. Please help. I know I need to master HTML, CSS but what do you recommend?
Thanks.
I personally use Grails and JavaScript for developing web apps. I like Grails very much, as I used to work with Java and Grails adds many cool features to the old Java and makes it easier to use. But I wouldn't learn Grails now because its future is uncertain. Ruby is a better candidate, but I don't know this language at all.
IMHO Javascript is a must. If you know it well, I guess you can use it both for client side and server side (Node.js). And I think JS will be use much more in the future, so learning it is a good start.
In conclusion, I recommend Javascript.
Cheers,
Lojza
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Closed 11 years ago.
I am migrating a site built in Coldfusion (no framework) to a coldfusion framework. Right now it looks like a choice between ColdBox and CFWheels.
The database is MS SQL.
I was wondering if anyone has migrated an existing site over to either of these frameworks and if they could recommend one framework over another?
I'm in the process of doing basically exactly what you describe - porting an older CF app that was written without any real framework to a cleaner CF codebase (also using SQL Server, BTW). We are using CF Wheels as the framework for this effort. We chose wheels because of a number of factors - we prefer the style of the framework, since it is similar to several other highly regarded application frameworks (Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET MVC, CodeIgniter, etc...). Also, the ORM layer wheels provides is quite nice, and will allow us to refactor much duplicated and verbose code.
I can't really comment much on ColdBox, since I haven't used it. Prior to Wheels, we were heavily into Fusebox. We were using Fusebox in a very structured MVC-oriented fashion, but as the Fusebox core lost momentum, we found that Wheels offered a similar organization to Fusebox (for how we were doing things) but in a nicer, more modern package, with lots of bells and whistles. So that is now our go-to framework.
I might be wrong here 'cause I've never really used CFWheels.
As far as I know CFWheels is a different kind of framework because it is very RoR-like. ColdBox is a more traditional MVC-like framework.
If you're not looking at redoing the persistence layer, maybe ColdBox or even the simpler FW/1 would be easier to migrate to.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I want to make really good websites.
Pet projects do really help in exploring blank spots and consciously mastering aspects you want to acquire.
I'm happy with the process and the result but what to do next with this product?
Users start to use it and I don't want to support them because I want to continue building my skills, not end user products. Hosting for all these web apps cost some money too.
Should I just code it till I find it interesting and technically challenging and then just junk it and move to another one? Or release everything as Open Source and don't care about support?
The reason why I don't want to do support is because I want to specialize. There is too wide topic already so I don't want to wide it even further.
I heard about the idea that you shouldn't care a lot about what you working on during your early years in development because pretty much everything will be junk. So just try more. Is it the way I should follow?
What is more effective?
You don't say how technical your websites will be - are you looking to build pure HTML, more dynamic DHTML or web applications with server scripts?
Regardless, you should look at taking on pet projects that challenge you in a variety of areas. As you get more experienced with web projects, you'll find that you end up doing many tasks over and over for different projects.
A good start would be to take on pet projects to tackle 'common' problems (layouts, styling, user logins/sessions, persisting data etc) and then look to abstract your work to a series of components that you can reuse in future projects. This way you will build up a library of reusable 'widgets' that means you don't have to scrap everything and start again each time.
As you get more experienced, set yourself tougher challenges, and before long you'll have a considerable arsenal of sample code, if architected well it will be mostly reusable, and at the same time you'll expand your experience.
Good luck!
I wouldn't say your early years are junk. Let's not think about the obvious intangible gains, like experience, insight, pattern recognition..etc....one tangible gain to think about is the development and organization of your own method libraries. My early years were in ASP so having my own set of includes was invaluable to my overall success and efficiency. I'd carry over a set of utilities and databasing methods that I had previously developed so new projects got easier and easier because the bare bones stuff had already been vetted.
It may not be important as it was 10 years ago because class libraries are getting so robust ...but you'll still find that as you develop new projects it'll be very useful to have utilities that you've already developed and organized into your very own class libraries.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I am looking for something that will allow me to put a photo gallery onto my website. I would also like to let someone else be able to easily add/remove pictures.
It would be nice, though not required, to work with a photo sharing website (like Flickr).
http://gallery.menalto.com/
Personally, I use Coppermine Photo Gallery which is PHP-based. It requires a database (I'm using MySQL) but there are other alternatives which use flat file based data sources.
Coppermine allows users to create accounts, upload their own photos and comment and vote on photos. There is a bunch of advanced features which I haven't dug into as yet. The main website has a complete list of functionality.
Obviously there are also other options for ASP.net solutions also. What web server are you hosting on?
Coppermine's Requirements are:
Any webserver, Apache recommended (Coppermine has been reported to work with Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), Roxen WebServer, Abyss, JanaServer)
PHP 4.2.0 or better
GD lib or Image Magick
mySQL 3.23.23 or better (4.x recommended). Don't confuse the client api version (which is shown in phpinfo) with the mySQL version!
Oh plus, Coppermine is free software and is being released under the GNU GPL license.
[ http://coppermine-gallery.net/ ]
CoolIris has XML/Flickr support with a "Vido wall" style Flash component.
No add/remove functionality though, depends on other code to do that. Maybe use this as well as someone else's suggestion?
http://developer.cooliris.com/?p=embed
Can I add xFlow! to this illustrious list?
http://xflow.pwhitrow.com
xFlow! is a gallery application that has been built to answer the internet's demand for a fully functional Coverflow style gallery.
Written in PHP and Javascript, it's a breeze to setup and administer, and boasts a wealth of features, including support for Flickr and YouTube.