I have a few years experience programming c++ and a little less then that using Qt. I built a data mining software using Qt and I want to make it available online. Unfortunately, I know close to nothing about web programming. Firstly, how easy or hard is this to do and what is the best way to go about it?
Supposing I am looking to hire someone to make me a secure, long-term, extensible, website for an online software service, what skill set should I be looking for?
Edit:
I want to make my question a little more specific:
How can I take a bunch of working c++ functions and port the code so I can run it server side on a website?
Once this is done, would it be easy to make changes to the c++ code and have the algorithm automatically update on the site?
What technologies would be involved? Are there any cloud computing platforms that would be good for something like this?
#Niklaos-what does it mean to build a library and how does one do that?
You might want to have a look at Wt[1]. Its a C++ web framework which is programmed more or less like a desktop GUI application. One of the use cases quoted is to bring legacy apps into the web.
[1] http://www.webtoolkit.eu
Port the functions to Java, easily done from C++, you can even find some tools to help - don't trust them implicitly but they could provide a boost.
See longer answer below.
Wrap them in a web application, and deploy them on Google App-Engine.
Java version of a library would be a jar file.
If you really want to be able to update the algorithm implementation dynamically, then you could implement them in Groovy, and upload changes through a form on your webapp, either as files or as a big text block, need to consider version control.
The effort/skillset involved to perform the task depends on how your wrote your code. If it is in a self-contained library, and has a clean (re-entrant, thread safe) API, you could probably hire a web developer (html/php/asp etc) to write the UI interface to the library for a relatively small cost. The skills required would be dependant on the technologies you wanted to use. For Windows development I would suggest C#/ASP. The applicant would require knowledge of interfacing with native libraries from a managed language. This is assuming that you dont mind the costs of Windows deployment for your application.
On the otherhand, if the library is complex or needs to be re-written to support the extensibility you are looking for, asking here will not get you much.
BTW: here is a great article on Marshalling if you chose to implement using C#/ASP
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164193.aspx
First, DO NOT USE PHP :D
I used it for some projects (the last one with symphony framework) and i almost shoot my self !
If you are very familiar with C++, ASP .NET could be a good solution because if you like C++ you are going to love C#.
Any ways, I personally use Ruby on Rails for 6 months now and I LOVE IT. I won't write you a book here but the framework is pure gold !
The only problem is that Ruby is a very special language. You will probably be a bit lost a the beginning. But as every one you will learn to love it.
But that was only for the server side. Indeed, there 3 technologies you won't be able to avoid if you want to start to develop web applications.
HTML, CSS and JavaScript are presents every where. This is why i'm thinking you should start by HTML and CSS then JavaScript (with jQuery).
When you've got some basics with these 3 technologies you should be able to choose the server side language.
But you've got to tell you one thing, it's not going to be easy !
PS : Ruby on Rails uses HAML and SASS. These 2 languages replaces HTML and CSS you should have a look at them quickly because they are awesome.
Related
Is there a relatively easy way to display the output of a C++ program on a webpage? And I don't mean manually, in other words, you see it on a webpage as it runs not as in I make a code tag and write it in myself.
EDIT: Just so everybody can get this clear I am going to post this up here. I am NOT trying to make a webpage in C++. Please excuse me if this sounds spiteful or anything but I am getting a lot of answers relating to that.
Step one, get yourself a server-side language. Be that PHP, ASP, Python, Ruby, whatever. Get it set up so you can serve it.
Step two, find your language's exec equivalent. Practically all of them have them. It'll let you run a command as if it were from the command line, usually with arguments and capture the output. Here's PHP's:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php
Of course, if you're passing user-input as arguments, sanitise!
I've just seen that you accepted Scott's answer. I usually wouldn't chase up a SO thread so persistently but I fear you're about to make a mistake that you'll come to regret down the line. Giving direct access to your program and its own built-in server is a terrible idea for two reasons:
You waste a day implementing this built-in server and then getting it to persist and testing it
More importantly, you've just opened up another attack vector into your server. When it comes to security, keep it simple.
You're far better having your C++ app running behind another (mature) server side language as all the work is done for you and it can filter the input to keep things safe.
You could write a CGI app in C++, or you could use an existing web server language to execute the command and send the output to the client.
You want to use Witty.
Wt (pronounced 'witty') is a C++
library for developing interactive web
applications.
The API is widget-centric and similar
to desktop GUI APIs. To the developer,
it offers complete abstraction of any
web-specific implementation details,
including event handling, graphics
support, graceful degradation (or
progressive enhancement), and pretty
URLs.
Unlike many page-based frameworks, Wt
was designed for creating stateful
applications that are at the same time
highly interactive (leveraging
techinques such as AJAX to their
fullest) and accessible (supporting
plain HTML browsers), using automatic
graceful degradation or progressive
enhancement.
The library comes with an application
server that acts as a stand-alone web
server or integrates through FastCGI
with other web servers.
I am not sure this is what you are looking for but you may want CGI You may want to look at this SO question, C++ may not be the best language for what you want to do.
based off the questions you posted Writing a web app like what you want is no simple task. What I would recommend is use some other library (this is one i found with a quick google) to get a web console on your server and give the user it is running under execute deny permissions on every folder except the folder you have your app installed.
This is still is a risky method if you don't set up the security correctly but it is the easiest solution without digging around too much on existing libraries to just have the application interactive.
EDIT --
The "Best" solution is learn AJAX and have your program post its own pages with it but like I said, it will not be easy.
It sounds like you want something like a telnet session embedded in a webpage. A quick google turns up many Java telnet apps, though I'm not qualified to evaluate which would be most ideal to embed in html.
You would set up the login script on the host machine to run your c++ app and the user would interact with it through the shell window. Note though that this will only work for pure command line apps. If you want to use a GUI app in this way, then you should look into remote desktop software or VNC.
It may be worth looking into Adobe's "Alchemy" project on Adobe Labs
This may help you with what you're trying to achieve.
:)
Are you looking for something like what codepad.org does? I believe they explain how they did it here.
There is a library called C++ Server Pages - Poco. I used it for one of my college project, its pretty good. There is also good documentation to get started with, u can find it here http://pocoproject.org/docs/
I am currently working on a program that I really think is a good idea (at least I sure hope it is). For the program I am building I am using (after some very long consideration) ColdFusion - Flex - Adobe Air. However, I have to learn ColdFusion to do this.
I am an independent developer that for the most part uses PHP to build my client's websites. Since I plan on learning ColdFusion to build this program, do you guys have any advice on how I can use ColdFusion elsewhere. It is not very exciting to think that I am learning this language for just one thing.
I don't plan on bulding Coca-Cola's lastest greatest website anytime soon, but I (for some odd reason) enjoy coding and was just wondering if you guys had any advice on any smaller-time avenues that one could persue??
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :)
Cliff notes: I'm an independent PHP developer learning ColdFusion for a client. Its not exciting to learn a language which I will never use again. Where can I apply ColdFusion in the future?
You can use ColdFusion to build any webapp you could build with PHP. I've seen a few articles lately with comments from PHP developers switching to ColdFusion. This one was posted today, and lists some pros and cons of switching to ColdFusion.
http://blog.rubicon.je/2009/09/coldfusion-half-a-year-away/
I wouldn't consider it an either/or proposition though. If you want to learn CF for your AIR app, it will absolutely come in handy for something else down the road, even if you don't plan for that. Knowing more than one (or three) languages is always beneficial, as it gives you additional insight into other ways to solve problems.
Dan
ColdFusion or CFML the language is a tool, like any other you might add to your toolkit. As developers I personally feel we choose choose the best tool for the job. That said having another tool available will invariably come in handy down the road rather you write another CFML application or not. General solid programming advice is to try and learn at least one new language a year.
CFML is easy to learn, yet also provides for advanced development, which is why many choose to go with it. I came from a PHP/Perl background and picked it up in a couple weeks. If you are comfortable programming once you get the syntax down you can use to it do anything you can do with PHP. I wrote at length on the comparison in this answer.
Further lengthy Question/Answers to the viability/use of ColdFusion:
Is ColdFusion a good choice for web development?
What is the status of ColdFusion today?
I know you didn't ask about comparisons, you have made your decision. For building Flex/AIR apps with a data back-end imho ColdFusion or BlazeDs is the way to go. ColdFusion allows you to hook up the power of java to serve data with the easy of a scripting language. With that starting point you have your foot in the Java platform which is tremendously powerful and extensive. You can invoke interact with the Java layer and harness that power. Many will make the leap to Java or a more "friendly" JVM language like Groovy or JRuby.
do you guys have any advice on how I can use ColdFusion elsewhere.
slidesix is a recent example of an interesting use of ColdFusion. NASDAQ built Flex/AIR market replay application. Also you can check Ben Forta's site for more sites running ColdFusion to get some ideas.
But I think you already hit the nail on the head with Flex/AIR apps if you plan on making more, much of what Adobe does is work to make integration with their technologies as seamless as possible. Honestly that alone has been what has excited me most about using CFML and the recent addition of open source alternatives in Railo/BlazeDs I have been building Flex apps powered by Railo/BlazeDs without paying a dime to Adobe.
I guess the bottom line is that the Java platform (via CFML) and the Flash Platform (via Flex Framework ) are both not going anywhere any time soon, and for that matter neither is PHP so I think you will have a solid set of skill from which to build on either way you go.
ColdFusion is huge in Government, both at the Federal and State level. I moved to the D.C. area in large part because of the number CF jobs available around here.
So, you could always use it for gainful employment.
Update: Some links as requested
Ben Forta's list of sites using ColdFusion, Government category
Who uses ColdFusion - a list of ColdFusion development shops
GotCFM?com - a list of sites using ColdFusion; lots of government sites there (look under "N"; the "Government" category isn't fleshed out)
Adobe.com - abridged list of customers, some with links to case studies
Monster.com search "coldfusion" in Washington, DC
Dice.com search "coldfusion" in Washington, DC
You can get a basic reading of what people are paying for via (shudder) RentACoder: http://www.google.com/search?q=coldfusion+site%3Arentacoder.com
You can use coldfusion everywhere and as much as you like in PHP. There's enough free engines (Railo, Smith, OpenBlueDragon) that you can load into Tomcat instances, or use something like stax to put a coldfusion app into the cloud.
How far you do or don't go is up to you. I find that I write about 1/2 the code in coldfusion that I do in PHP. Maybe it's syntax that I feel less, I don't know.
But build your first project, I think the dots to connect will become apparent on their own
I am familiar with both Python and C++ as a programmer. I was thinking of writing my own simple web application and I wanted to know which language would be more appropriate for server-side web development.
Some things I'm looking for:
It has to be intuitive. I recognize that Wt exists and it follows the model of Qt. The one thing I hate about Qt is that they encourage strange syntax through obfuscated means (e.g. the "public slots:" idiom). If I'm going to write C++, I need it to be standard, recognizable, clean code. No fancy shmancy silliness that Qt provides.
The less non-C++ or Python code I have to write, the better. The thing about Django (Python web framework) is that it requires you pretty much write the HTML by hand. I think it would be great if HTML forms took more of a wxWidgets approach. Wt is close to this but follows the Qt model instead of wxWidgets.
I'm typically writing video games with C++ and I have no experience in web development. I want to write a nice web site for many reasons. I want it to be a learning experience, I want it to be fun, and I want to easily be able to concentrate on "fun stuff" (e.g. less boilerplate, more meat of the app).
Any tips for a newbie web developer? I'm guessing web app frameworks are the way to go, but it's just a matter of picking one.
I would go with Wt because:
You already know C++
It has a nice layout system, so you don't need to know lots of HTML
It is very well written and a pleasure to code in
Your deployed apps will handle 50 times the load of the python app on less hardware (from experience with pylons apps, 10,000 times the load of a plone app :P)
It has all the libraries that the guy in the first question says it doesn't and more
In built development webserver
Templating language
ORM
unit testing help
open-id and user+password authentication
A brilliant widget library
Web 2.0 isn't an after thought; it wasn't designed on a Request+Response model like all the python frameworks (as far as I know), but on an event driven interactive model.
It uses WebSockets if available
Falls back to normal ajax gracefully if not
Falls back to http for browsers like linx
It is more like coding a gui app than a web app, which is probably what you're used to
It is statically typed and therefore less error prone. Does def delete(id): take an int or a string ?
The unit tests (on my apps at least) take 10-100 times less time than my python app unit tests to run (including the compile time)
It has a strong and friendly community. All my email list posts are answered in 0-3 days.
If you'd like to avoid writing HTML, you could try GWT. However, in my experience, using an intermediate framework to generate HTML and ECMAScript never works anywhere near as well as hand-writing the pages.
[edit] nikow mentions in the comments that Pyjamas is a port of GWT to Python.
Regarding the language, if given the choice between C++ and Python I would pick Python 100% of the time. Even ignoring the obvious difference in abstraction between those languages, Python simply has more useful libraries than C++. You don't have to write your own development-oriented web server -- Django comes with one. You don't need to write a custom template library -- Python has Genshi. Django comes with a capable ORM layer, or for even more control you can use SQLAlchemy. It's barely a contest.
Django is good point to start web development it is great framework
If you look for C++ take a look on CppCMS, it is much more close to Django, it is not like Wt that mimics Qt.
In any case, it is really depends on your needs. C++ can be used for embedded or high performance web applications, but for medium range web sites Django would be better. (and I'm developer of CppCMS)
I think you better go firt python in your case, meanwhile you can extend cppCMS functionalities and write your own framework arround it.
wt was a good idea design, but somehow not that suitable.
If you are exploring Python frameworks (based on the excepted answer I think you are) I think you really owe it to yourself to check out CherryPy. When you write CherryPy apps, you really are just writing Python apps. The framework gets out of your way in a real hurry. Your free to choose your own templating, ORM (if you choose to use ORM), etc. Seriously, take 10 or 20 minutes and give it a look.
The only reason you might want to use C++ over Python is when speed is paramount.
If this is going to be your first web-app, you'll probably be ok with just Python, and your development speed will be orders of magnitude better than with CPP.
Django's templating language is far from powerless, to me it actually seems very pythonic. You actually can write pure python in a template(although this is generally not recommended).
Even better, it's possible to replace Django's templating system with the one you like.
My personal favourite language for this is HAML.
Here's some data on this:
Is there a HAML implementation for use with Python and Django
Having looked several ones, like django, pylos, web2py, wt. My recommendation is web2py. It's a python version of "ruby on rails" and easy to learn.
Ideally, and you will think I am crazy, I can code some basic logic into a bash or korn script and open that functionality up to clients hitting them. There is a lot of plumbing involved in web services and I was wondering what tools and techniques more experienced developers have been using to prototype systems where a backend webservice may not be yet available. Do such tools exist for bash and ksh? What languages are the easiest to develop mockups in. BTW I am staring at an ecplipse IDE feeling a bit disgusted by what I am looking at. I just now got JBOSS installed and running... at its heart all these services are are socket connections to the client through a port ... or am I mistaken?
BTW: I am currently reading through this. And my disgust is increasing.
I share your disgust with eclipse. A language like Python is perfect for rapid prototyping. If you combine it with one of the many web frameworks (Pylons or Django would be my recommendation for Python), the amount of work you can accomplish quickly is astounding.
Seriously consider some other scripting language. I've been using Python and Ruby to build quick prototypes, and been very happy with them.
If you're free to make this choice, consider using a REST architecture instead of a WSDL and SOAP solution. RPC has its place, but if you can live with the restrictions of REST, life will be much easier. Even if you can't, it's a lot quicker for prototyping to use a dynamic language.
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As a novice, I've spent time learning a smattering of C and a fair bit of PHP. I've looked at writing desktop applications for Windows, but there seems to be a fair barrier to entry due to complexity of APIs. Is it worth learning this, or will native applications become less common in the future?
The way I see it, the only desktop application I ever use is a web browser and a text editor as well as the obviously the OS itself. Everything I need is online now.
Is learning to write non-web applications a useful skill going forwards? If so, what should I learn?
I don't think it is ever a good idea to choose one side and stick with it religiously. I think a good engineer will expose themselves to as much as they can so he can make an informed decision about which is the best tool to complete a task.
In other words, don't choose a platform, OS, programming language, etc. and then ignore the others. It is best to be well-rounded in your skill set.
There will always be a market for native apps, although a lot of stuff is moving to the web and there's more scope than ever before for web based apps, native GUI applications are never going to go away entirely.
However, it's really, really hard to give you any really useful advice other than stick with what you like. If you use web stuff exclusively, it would be a bit foolish to go and become a windows GUI programmer :)
This may get modded down - but I'm going to say it anyway.
You can either program or you can't. About 18 months ago when I was looking for a new job, I was looking at the market and I was doing a lot of .NET but a few places wanted me to do JAVA.
I was doing Web Services, they wanted someone to do other stuff...At the end of the day it came down to this - if you know how to code you know how to code. If you're writing desktop apps right now and say in 6-8 months you want to move to some ASP.NET MVC, you'll be fine.
It may take you a bit of start-up time to learn the syntax and get a feel for some things - but in the end you'll be fine. I say this holds true for all the new languages...Skill is skill
Non-web applications will be very useful for the far future (as I see right now). We will not be able to do anything with the efficiency as a well written desktop application online using an interpreted scripting language that has to use a network protocol to communicate with the client.
However, if you are interested in networking, maybe you can try a little of both. Make an rss reader, a simple web browser, or an IRC client. Their all great projects.
You should learn whatever you want to learn. If you don't you'll probably find it harder going than you need to.
I personally started writing desktop applications for Windows, because I used it at the time. These days I do think that you're correct - you can produce a website / online-application without investing so much into the process.
But even writing a decent web application is going to be hard if you're new to programming. A standalone page is simple, but when you add databases, security, and administration into the mix then things can grow.
In my oppinion, a novice should conentrate on the basics and internals of the language of choice. Graphical or web interfaces should wait until you know what you're doing in the backend. I personally would suggest you start with console programs, but I guess that depends on the platform you're using. Maybe desktop interfaces are easier to start with on Windows.
The best practice (in my oppinion) is to write a solid backend with the functionality you want to provide and write it in a modular way, so you can later decide if you want to provide a desktop interface or a web interface (or both). The choice for the user interface shouldn't matter in the beginning.
Learning non-web applications will always be useful. There will always be applications that are not suited to be web apps. Even if everything moved to be a web application, the server side code and web browsers still need to be written.
At this point in time, if you're interested in the Windows platform then I would advise looking into C# and WPF. Those technologies are used in both native and web environments.
Web development is all well and good but the majority of systems even if they have a nice web front end still consist primarily below the web level, a bit like an iceberg.
End most web implementations are n-tier in design with the lower levels like data access and integration with peer servers ocurring in non web languages.
As I see it there seems to be one pervasive language that can touch all these levels and than is .Net Framework. Notice I make no specification about c#, vb etc. I consider that to be a matter of taste. However I can't remember seeing an n-tier banking website using php to do the data layer. Nor an online ordering website that would use ruby to talk to its jd edwards server.
This is where the heavyweight languages still pervade and if thats where you want to work then learning the .Net framework in whatever language variant you choose is the way to go.
Master one discipline then move to the next one.
I am also at the very infancy of learning business application development. The very step I took was to study database. Majority of the applications in the real world is data-centric. It is good to start with desktop application. Do some drag-and-drop then study the code behind. I am doing the same thing with ASP.NET. I have downloaded tons of starter kits. It all depends on your learning style. For me, I can learn more easily by "learn-by-doing" than by digesting chunk after chunk of set theories. That is why cookbook and headfirst books perfectly work for me.
I believe that the future development model for "Web" applications will more akin to the current model of desktop application development. By which I mean that tomorrow's Web apps won't be HTML/AJAX efforts that are difficult and expensive to maintain, debug and test, they'll instead be developed with compiled languages that target a platform that's already available in the browser. Flash, Silverlight, and (to a lesser degree, it appears) Chrome are the current paragons of this idea.
So maybe it's not such a waste of time to learn those "complex" APIs. My group builds WPF applications and I personally don't find those to be any more complex than the the current crop of HTML/AJAX projects.
From your background in languages, I noticed you only mention PHP and C. Neither language is strictly speaking an object-oriented/OO language. You really should learn a traditional OO language like Java or C#, as the majority of jobs are looking for those skills. BTW, read Yegge's advice on what languages a professional developer should learn, and think for yourself about what you should do.
Assuming that you're interested in enterprise application development, I would have to say that that field is transitioning from traditional web development (present stuff from a database on a web page) to rich internet applications (still present data from a database, but the front end begins to approximate a desktop application). Building a rich internet application will require concepts that desktop UI developers have known for a long time. Therefore, I don't think you have to chose between web development and desktop development.
I agree, you should learn what you want to. Once you have an understanding of Web, then learn some desktop programming to broaden your horizons a bit. You'll never know when you'll need it.
But, also, if you're looking at learning windows desktop development, then you should definitely look at C# and/or VB.NET. The .NET Framework is by far the easiest way to develop desktop app for Windows; much easy than C++ from what I understand (I actually didn't spend much time on C++ myself).
#Rich Bradshaw,
I think you can get answer on your question by looking at any job seeking site.
what should I learn?
Whatever you like and can bring you enough money.
Thats a very good question.
I know nowadays that most app development that im aware of is web apps.
But with languages such as flex , i wouldnt be suprised if the desktop apps came back again.
To be well versed you should do both. Skills in one area may or may not translate into the other very well. The lack of state for example trips up lots of desktop developers when they start building web apps. Of course, your experience may vary
A professional .NET programmer should handle both webform and winform.
Even you start from webform, but finally, you will have chance on touch winform.
Just like a topic "VB vs C#", you will not see a .net expert talk about that, because finally, you should know both of them.
There will be cases where things beyond the web can be used:
Scripting languages/console application - build scripts come to mind here for an example but also writing batch or command files to do simple tasks like handle deployment or to do some other simple task that is likely better done from within a black box rather than manually doing something over and over again.
Windows services(WCF) - These are also possibly useful for monitoring things and sending off those, "Server is down!" messages for someone to go and find out what went wrong.
There is also something to be said for middleware and back-end development where one would write web services or handle querying a database or inserting data into a DB that may not be the same of front-end web UI work, just to give a couple of other examples of software development work out there aside from the embedded systems and mobile stuff that is also non-web and non-desktop development in a sense.