After reading tons of tutorials and opinions, I'm more confused than ever on what could be a solid combination of tools to build a cross-platform client-server app, where the bulk of the cpu work is done on the server. The client just needs to push/pull data from the server on a regular interval, and display among other things a Google map with some moving markers. The logic is quite simple, but I can't really figure out the best way to do what I want, especially since I'm just an amateur.
So I've decided to set up Eclipse with PhoneGap, but looking for decent samples I found about AppLaud and AppLaudCloud. And then Sencha Touch. And then Mono (I'm familiar with .NET). And Appcelerator... I'm lost!!!
Could anyone please tell me where to start? Or better, which solution is the easiest to set up and work with while retaining flexibility?
Many thanks
Chris
For whatever is worth, here is what I used to build a couple of webapps successfully: Dreamweaver CS5.5 + JQuery Mobile + PhoneGap.
This solution allowed me to easily design the app's UI and at the same time write the PHP server code effortlessly. In my opinion, it's the easiest tool for a beginner as the Dreamweaver environment takes care of pretty much everything. After watching a few free tutorials about DW, I was up and running very quickly.
Related
Since I'm familiar with AS3, I'm planning to build a desktop app using Air, and I'd like to not run into limitations, I never developed a full blown app for desktop using Air, only small apps and others for mobile.
The idea of this app is to be similar to an IDE, with some visual management, think of the design view of Flex, something like that. But not that big, a smaller/reduced version of that.
I'm asking this because I don't remember seeing any app like that built in Air, and I wonder if there is a good reason, or not.
If for example someone says: "use Java, its better", please tell me why, and more importantly, what things I can do in Java for desktop that Air just wont allow me to.
IMHO AIR is extremely powerful and if you combine Stage3D + Native Extensions you can do almost everything with a good performance. I have been working in several projects for desktop, iOS and Android and using Starling + Feathers + Robotlegs + creating my own native extensions (plus there is a lot of free/open source/commercial) was possible to achieve all my (and clients) goals.
Also, there is a huge (ActionScript/AIR) community sharing knowledge and helping each other, several open source frameworks (for games, 2D, 3D, animations, GUI).
I have tried Objective-C, Swift and Java and of course, there is a lot of positive points, native performance, powerful IDE's, GUI integration, native components, etc.
It's a mix, if you need to have your app running in multi platform, I believe Adobe AIR is a good option, if not and you have the necessary knowledge to work using Objective-C/Java, use native.
Of course, it's all relative, I'm just trying to share some tips.
I'm an experienced C/C++/C#/Objective-C desktop,web, and mobile programmer and I've become accustomed to building most of my software from scratch. I've built all my websites from the ground up using ASP.NET. I have quite a few ideas for websites that I'd like to test and I'd like to increase the rate at which I can actually build a website. I'm sure I'm unaware of many of the technologies that are commonly used for building out ideas quickly. About a year back, I looked into using the popular CMS called Drupal to see if it would help me speed up development. After two weeks of trying to decipher the structure of the Drupal CMS, along with trying to learn PHP, I found the learning curve to be steep enough to convince me that it would just be faster if I built my website yet again from scratch using ASP.NET MVC. I'm wondering if anyone could suggest any other technologies that are designed for programmers to build websites quicker than my current method of building them from scratch using ASP.NET MVC.
Secondly, I've been hearing many entrepreneurs mention Ruby on Rails is what they use to speed up the development of their ideas, so I'm planning to investigate it. Why do I hear more about Ruby on Rails than any other technology? Would you suggest using it to speed up development?
Thanks in advance for all your wisdom!
I've tried out Ruby on Rails, Django (the Python equivalent of Ruby on Rails) and Drupal. Drupal is nice if you're just acting as a sysadmin: install the modules you want and use it as-is. But PHP as a programming language is so annoying that I'd hate to use it for something serious.
Django has some odd quirks but seems to work well. From an MVC perspective, Django calls views "templates" and calls controllers "views", which is ugly. Also, instead of generating default URL -> controller/action mappings for you the way that Rails does, Django set up routing files by hand before things work. You also have to set up some DJANGO environment variables if you want to run other helper Python code with access to your model objects. Rails also creates and configures a sqlite database by default so that you can start right away, but with Django you have to set it up yourself.
Rails seems to "just work" in so many ways that I highly recommend it. Ruby is also a pleasant language to work in. Try the simple startup to see what I mean:
rails foo # Create the foo webapp
cd foo
script/server
Then browse to http://localhost:3000 to try things out. That page will give you some info about your webapp and point you to the next steps.
Use an ORM for the data layer. That will increase the speed.
Also reuse common code elements from your previous projects.
And still, for any more or less different site you would need to do some work. Cannot avoid that. ASP.NET MVC is quite powerful tool, especially because it's backed up by the rich .NET class library. At least this framework doesn't build you obstacles at any step along the way, which is quite an accomplishment.
Django is a framework for database-driven web pages in Python.
I agree with your assessment. I was rather proficient in C/C++/C# and never built a website before. I looked at a couple of things, but when I started working with ASP.NET MVC2, I loved it. Another method/architecture I like but haven't messed too much with is WPF. If you download Microsoft Expression Blend 4 there's a 60 day trial and it's really nice. A lot of clicking and less typing. :) Hope this helps.
I toyed with the Zend PHP Framework a bit, and found it to be pretty good. You mentioned that the learning curve for Drupal/PHP didn't make it worthwhile to pursue, but if you retained any of the PHP you learned from that, this might go a bit quicker. To read more you can check out "10 Compelling Reasons to Use Zend Framework". Zend might not exactly be "configure and you're done," but since I usually work with Enterprise Java, I found it pretty reasonable in the speed-to-set-up department.
I've got to convert a not terribly complicated bespoke project management system from MsAccess Application to PHP/MySQL. I've been programming for donkey's years but embarrassingly know practically nothing about modern methodologies.
So the old 'learning curve' versus 'improved efficiency' conundrum rears its ugly head once again.
Although I've Googled up some stuff I don't want to prejudice your suggestions, where would you start, I'm at your mercy?
What sort of learning curve am I looking at?
Consider learning a PHP framework and its philosophy and architecture to produce the application. You'll be glad you did.
http://www.phpframeworks.com/
Basically, this will help you get up and running quickly with all of the necessary moving parts, in a way that promotes best practices. IMO it's probably the quickest and best way to accomplish your goals.
For recommendations on which one to choose, have a look here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/184395/what-is-the-best-free-php-framework-working-on-shared-hosting-and-why
Well, when you say you been writing code for years, do you have any choice as to the final platform?
Access 2010 can create web based applications that scale horizontally in a HUGE way. The resulting applications don't requite Silverlight or even any ActiveX, but ONLY a standard browser. Here is a video of a application I wrote in Access, and note at the half way point I switch to running in a browser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI
Access 2010 also now does have database triggers and stored procedures. However, you are hinting that you don't have a choice of technologies here so the above new features and even the new Web site creating ability of Access is thus moot for you.
I guess the 1st area I would start with is installing and setting up MySql. The MySql site has some good links to tutorials etc. You simply have to get up to speed with that database server and get conformable with it regardless of learning PHP anyway, so that one step and area I would start out with. And, if you worked with databases, then you find MySql quite easy to get up to speed with so you feel like you making some progress as you embark on this new road
I have been working on microsoft based web technologies (.net, sql server, iis) for about an year and would like to know the opensource alternatives for the above. I have heard of LAMP, Java based technologies, ruby on rails etc. Can you please point me to a place where I can find more information about these and how they match up against each other. Basically I am looking for an overview of the popular web technologies in today's world.
Thanks a lot.
Vijay
Hmmm, thats a bit difficult to do, as each language is unique in its design. I guess it's less a case of which is the best, but more which is the best to suit you. Your decision should rest on which language you feel most comfortable working in, for example like you i started off in asp.net 2.0, developing a few web apps... but made the switch over to php, the two are relatively the same, however i found php to be more accessible for the web based tasks i want it to do. Also i use macs primarily as i am a graphic designer in addition to being a web developer, so if i could develop in mac osx that was a big plus.
Perhaps you should start by outlining what environment you want to work in first, and what you'd want to be doing in it.
Then consider cost, we managed to slash the basic costs of running our sites by moving to php, simply because of the licensing differences.
Support is also a biggy, you'll find with open source stuff there is more around since it's generally a lot more accessible to more people, since theres little to no startup cost.
Finally the best way to find out whats best for you is to try them all! you don't have to be an expert in it to know whether its for you, just get a feel for the language and see if it feels flows better with you.
Hope this is of use to you :)
oh and finally, wikipedia has a little comparison thingy, its not really a great comparison but its better than nothing hey?
EDIT:
Hi Again.
I've done a bit of digging and i think i've found what your looking for!
This is a comparison chart someone made, in it details the pros/cons of php, python, perl, asp, and ruby.
Theres also this which is a comparison of some of the frameworks, they've missed quite a few off the php list, namely kohana which is a brilliant framework!
And finally heres a comparison of the three main server types, and their pros/cons.
I'm trying to get a few web development ideas off the ground. Unfortunately I will be the only developer, so I'm focusing on getting a good debuggable, testable setup going that I can develop applications rapidly with.
Which languages, development styles and frameworks would you recommend for rapid development? Last time I checked RoR was the next big thing but that was a while back.
Ruby on Rails is a good choice for rapid prototyping. It's simple, clean and easily learned. PHP also offers a fairly low learning curve and a wide variety of built-in functionality for accomplishing most tasks. Both languages have their shortcomings, but on small-team projects for low to moderate traffic sites, you aren't likely to bump up against them.
The one you know best.
For people who are comfortable with Python there's also Django.
I guess it is pretty much an equivalent to Ruby on Rails (although I never used Ruby on Rails). Django's concept is to have many autonomous applications which can be used together in order to build small to large scale websites. It has great documentation, although deployment can be quite a hassle. Unfortunately it's not supported by many hosters.
PHP with Zend Framework has comparetively lower development time.
If you are familiar with C# or VB.NET and HTML then ASP.NET is also a very good option.
Just to add another, GWT (Google Web Toolkit) is an awesome option. It allows you to write all of your code in one language (more or less, you'll still need a bit of css --for the record ASP.NET allows this as well) and you can create really rich applications with all kinds of awesome javascript and ajax stuff without needing to know javascript. Their tutorials are great and personally, I think you can get off the ground really, really quickly.
I guess it matters more as to what languages you're most familiar with.
Whatever that language is, look for a good MVC framework for it.