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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.
Related
I am contemplating writing my first BlackBerry app. I am fundamentally a C/C++ programmer, not Java. Can anyone provide some guidelines on the quickest route, i.e. shallowest learning curve, to writing a BlackBerry app?
Any resources/links would be useful.
As an aside:
In an ideal world, I would like to write once and deploy for both BlackBerry and the iPhone, but since I am targetting largely business people, I think BlackBerry should be my target - right?
Is it possible to write once and deploy on BOTH iPhone and BlackBerry?
C++ and C programmers can easily jump into Java and Actionscript.
I would suggest you to write application in Flash using actionsscript.
As you are a beginner, AS3 will be a good start as it provides easy constructs and API for UI programming.
Moreover, doing AS3, you can easily port it over to Android too.
If you are very particular to develop for both Blackberry and iPhone, then try using web technologies. Both phones support web technologies and create web apps.
These apps are also very easy to create and can even run on Adnroid with minor changes. My suggestion is to use your progrmming basics and try to venture into all possible languages to get a breadth.
Skyeagle,
With a C/C++ background, I'd suggest you start on the iPhone. Not only will you be more comfortable with the language but it's only a limited range of devices to worry about - in comparison with the BlackBerry market which varies vastly in form factor and ability (and is of course in Java).
However, if you were sure about doing BlackBerry, the main BlackBerry site is probably the place to start, along with the support forum - oh, and StackOverflow :) The JDK comes with plenty of examples which will cover the basics too.
I also suggest you do a little searching on here - getting started with BlackBerry development has already been covered a few times and probably hasn't changed that much over the last little while.
Final note - if you want to be on the bleeding edge of development, what about looking to develop for the PlayBook, soon to be RIM's latest offering?
Stuart
Depends on your requirements but you could use something like mosync
Hey there,
So I've been heavily focused on design/development using web technology for the last few years (php/mysql, javascript, etc), and I'm a bit hesitant to start learning C++.. At the same time, I see it as a potentially enjoyable learning experience.
To keep things brief, right now I'm developing an online app that plots out certain locations on a map, and you can sort through these locations and do a bunch of other nifty things..sorry to be vague. The point is: I don't see any real advantages of making this an actual "app" when the entire functionality of the app itself can do quite fine through the modern mobile browser..
Not to mention that, by living in a browser, it's much less proprietary
So, my question is: Is there any way to make a simple app that's basically porting the user to my site? I guess it'd be convenient that as an app, the user has a nice little icon to click on when they do need to access it..
Android development relies heavily on Java. So you are all ready on the right track.
However if you just want to make an app that brings people to your website, running javascript I am guessing, this is easy to do with android.
Android supports the webkit browser and has a view group called WebView. Your app can be nothing more than a shortcut on a desktop that opens a webview directly pointed to your website. It could add other options to point to other parts of your website like bookmarks.
WebView webview = new WebView(this);
setContentView(webview);
weview.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webview.loadUrl("yoursiteurlgoeshere);
A lot of apps on the market are actually based around a WebView. There are other classes that allow you more control over the view, like whether links are opened in the webview or in a new browser, or whether the user is allowed to use the resize options, etc.
Welcome to Android.
There is a massive article on exactly this type of idea. It discusses a number of different things and is well worth the read if you are indeed interested in making a cross-phone web-app. It talks about an html5 facility in the works for creating such a thing as you describe, but it isn't quite universal yet.
Here is an article on making an iphone app in html5.
You can also use phonegap to port your design to andorid.
also, check out a jquery plugin calld jqtouch if you are interseted in developing touch capable applications quickly.
If you are worried about speed and the issue of internet connectivity, you can use html5 local storage features which are available on both android and itouch. Ibm has a great series on these issues and part 2 covers local storage.
No. The problem with web technology on a mobile device is the delay. You are far away from the server, so a lot of the things you can easily do with a normal client creates a very bad user experience on a mobile device. The roundtrip time is simply too large. You have to move much more functionality to the client. This client is also less powerfull, and tends to have limits on caching large elements
How is this related to C++?
There is also a C++ API which is only recently available. Google calls it the NDK (Native Development Kit). Information about it can be found here: http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html
I personally haven't developed using the NDK. The only real reason someone would really need to would be to write a high-performance application that can't stand the overhead of the Java JVM--which is getting more and more rare these days IMO.
As far as creating a simple app with a web container in it, see Phobos' response. That is exactly how I'd do it personally.
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.
Background:
I have a new site in the design phase and am considering using ColdFusion. The Server is currently set-up with ColdFusion and Python (done for me).
It is my choice on what to use and ColdFusion seems intriguing with the tag concept. Having developed sites in PHP and Python the idea of using a new tool seems fun but I want to make sure it is as easy to use as my other two choices with things like URL beautification and scalability.
Are there any common problems with using ColdFusion in regards to scalability and speed of development?
My other choice is to use Python with WebPy or Django.
ColdFusion 9 with a good framework like Sean Cornfeld's FW/1 has plenty of performance and all the functionality of any modern web server development language. It has some great integration features like exchange server support and excel / pdf support out of the box.
Like all tools it may or may not be the right one for you but the gotchas in terms of scalability will usually be with your code, rarely the platform.
Liberally use memcached or the built in ehache in CF9, be smart about your data access strategy, intelligently chunk returned data and you will be fine performance wise.
My approach with CF lately involves using jQuery extensively for client side logic and using CF for the initial page setup and ajax calls to fill tables. That dramatically cuts down on CF specific code and forces nice logic separation. Plus it cuts the dependency on any one platform (aside from the excellent jQuery library).
To specifically answer your question, if you read the [coldfusion] tags here you will see questions are rarely on speed or scalability, it scales fine. A lot of the questions seem to be on places where CF is a fairly thin layer on another tool like Apache Axis (web services) and ExtJs (cfajax) - neither of which you need to use. You will probably need mod-rewrite or IIS rewrite to hide .cfm
Since you have both ColdFusion and Python available to you already, I would carefully consider exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish.
Do you need a gradual learning curve, newbie-friendly language (easy for someone who knows HTML to learn), great documentation, and lots of features that make normally difficult tasks easy? That sounds like a job for ColdFusion.
That said, once you get the basics of ColdFusion down, it's easy to transition into an Object Oriented approach (as others have noted, there are a plethora of MVC frameworks available: FW/1, ColdBox, Fusebox, Model-Glue, Mach-ii, Lightfront, and the list goes on...), and there are also dependency management (DI/IoC) frameworks (my favorite of which is ColdSpring, modeled after Java's Spring framework), and the ability to do Aspect-Oriented Programming, as well. Lastly, there are also several ORM frameworks (Transfer, Reactor, and DataFaucet, if you're using CF8 or earlier, or add Hibernate to the list in CF9+).
ColdFusion also plays nicely with just about everything else out there. It can load and use .Net assemblies, provides native access to Java classes, and makes creating and/or consuming web services (particularly SOAP, but REST is possible) a piece of cake. (I think it even does com/corba, if you feel like using tech from 1991...)
Unfortunately, I've got no experience with Python, so I can't speak to its strengths. Perhaps a Python developer can shed some light there.
As for url rewrting, (again, as others have noted) that's not really done in the language (though you can fudge it); to get a really nice looking URL you really need either mod_rewrite (which can be done without .htaccess, instead the rules would go into your Apache VHosts config file), or with one of the IIS URL Rewriting products.
The "fudging" I alluded to would be a url like: http://example.com/index.cfm/section/action/?search=foo -- the ".cfm" is in the URL so that the request gets handed from the web server (Apache/IIS) to the Application Server (ColdFusion). To get rid of the ".cfm" in the URL, you really do have to use a URL rewriting tool; there's no way around it.
From two years working with CF, for me the biggest gotchas are:
If you're mainly coding using tags (rather than CFScript) and formatting for readability, be prepared for your output to be filled with whitespace. Unlike other scripting languages, the whitespace between statements are actually sent to the client - so if you're looping over something 100 times and outputting the result, all the linebreaks and tabs in the loop source code will appear 100 times. There are ways around this but it's been a while - I'm sure someone on SO has asked the question before, so a quick search will give you your solution.
Related to the whitespace problem, if you're writing a script to be used with AJAX or Flash and you're trying to send xml; even a single space before the DTD can break some of the more fussy parsing engines (jQuery used to fall over like this - I don't know if it still does and flash was a nightmare). When I first did this I spent hours trying to figure out why what looked like well formed XML was causing my script to die.
The later versions aren't so bad, but I was also working on legacy systems where even quite basic functionality was lacking. Quite often you'll find you need to go hunting for a COM or Java library to do the job for you. Again, though, this is in the earlier versions.
CFAJAX was a heavy, cumbersome beast last time I checked - so don't bother, roll your own.
Other than that, I found CF to be a fun language to work with - it has its idiosyncracies like everything else, but by and large it was mostly headache free and fast to work with.
Hope this helps :)
Cheers
Iain
EDIT: Oh, and for reasons best known to Adobe, if you're running the trial version you'll get a lovely fat HTML comment before all of your output - regardless of whether or not you're actually outputting HTML. And yes, because the comment appears before your DTD, be prepared for some browsers (not looking at any one in particular!) to render it like crap. Again - perhaps they've rethought this in the new version...
EDIT#2: You also mentioned URL Rewriting - where I used to work we did this all the time - no problems. If you're running on Apache, use mod_rewrite, if you're running on IIS buy ISAPI Rewrite 3.
do yourself the favor and check out the CFWheels project. it has the url rewriting support and routes that you're looking for. also as a full stack mvc framework, it comes with it's own orm.
It's been a few years, so my information may be a little out of date, but in my experience:
Pros:
Coldfusion is easy to learn, and quick to get something up and running end-to-end.
Cons:
As with many server-side scripting languages, there is no real separation between persistence logic, business logic, and presentation. All of these are typically interwoven throughout a typical Coldfusion source file. This can mean a lot more work if you want to make changes to the database schema of a mature application, for example.
There are some disciplines that can be followed to make things a little more maintainable; "Fusebox" was one. There may be others.
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