Programming advice

[hargi]

Looking for a bit of advice, got a bit of time to dedicate to learning more programming stuff.
Bit of background. Know some basic old school php - none oop and probably outdated ways of doing stuff.
Have played with codeignitor and built a database driven site.
Also used .net C# mvc4 I think to build a similar site. This was my first real understanding of mvc and loved the editor.

Anyways heard some stuff about RoR becoming big but I heard that in 2006 and it doesn't seam to have kicked on?

So my question is what should I concentrate on? I don't really have any projects in mind. Is RoR the future or is Swift worth it or should I stick to a more traditional one in php or .net.
I'm guessing most work would come from web apps/ web sites but again this is just going to be a hobby not for a project or job.

Thanks in advance

 

[Mynight]

Personally I'd say you can't go wrong with knowing all of them.

Swift afaik is only a replacement/compliment to obj-C so unless you plan on doing Xcode work it won't be much use to you.

As for PHP vs ror they're both great languages PHP is apparently faster and uses less resources. However ror requires much less in the way of coding ie you can do the same in ror in 2 lines that you can do in PHP in 5.

I learnt PHP as I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon ror is easy enough to pick up on but iirc its limited to Unix bases.

Web apps/website wise a core knowledge of html,css,JavaScript,PHP,sql would be adequate.

 

[JimAroo]

Can't go wrong with Ruby or PHP.

I'd get familiar with OOP, you can do this in any language and is relevant to all languages.

Remember that PHP is a language and RoR is a framework, PHP has some frameworks too such as Laravel and Symfony2.

 

[Mynight]

Remember that PHP is a language and RoR is a framework, PHP has some frameworks too such as Laravel and Symfony2.

Oops my bad. I worded that rather badly. Thanks for the correction .

 

[radderfire]

So my question is what should I concentrate on? I don't really have any projects in mind. Is RoR the future or is Swift worth it or should I stick to a more traditional one in php or .net.

I'm guessing most work would come from web apps/ web sites but again this is just going to be a hobby not for a project or job.

Is it really just a hobby, or a hobby with a view to one day getting a job (which it might as well be!)

If the latter, which language you choose depends on the type of projects and companies you like working for. If you like bigger salary and company, go .net, if you like smaller companies and maybe more entrepreneurial projects, go php or Ruby. Whatever you decide to do, cut down your focus and dedicate yourself to becoming really good at one thing, e.g. PHP development with good knowledge of frameworks, as that way you'll be more employable.

Rgds

 

[hargi]

Thanks all, radderfire that's kind of what I wanted to hear, become good at one, or know little bits about one.
I'm guessing you can more or less get to the same end product with each language just by different means.

At the moment I'm thinking it will be small freelance stuff if anything

 

[AGD]

Ruby and PHP are languages in decline, I would avoid them.

If you want to build web apps/web sites then you should at a minimum learn javascript. I would also recommend learning React JS as it looks to be the dominant client-side framework going forward.

 

[D.P.]

First question, do you only want to do web stuff, or do you want o know how to program software, Apps, systems, embedded?

 

[hargi]

All I have done at the moment is web stuff, and must have that is just CRUD stuff.
Id like to a bit more then that if I'm honest.

 

[meandu229]

I'd get familiar with OOP, you can do this in any language and is relevant to all languages.

This, Do what interests you to get really familiar with OOP most of the stuff you will learn is very transferable. Once you are happy with a good knowledge of a language/framework try combining them like have a .net back end with a javascript front end or similar. But really once you have grasped OOP well the rest is just syntax.

 

[jsmoke]

I would generally recommend C/C++ as if you can master that then your confidence will be sky high. There is no real correct language but as said pick an area like web, apps, mobile, games. And don't let people belittle you, takes time to learn and plenty of arrogant programmers out there.

 

[D.P.]

All I have done at the moment is web stuff, and must have that is just CRUD stuff.
Id like to a bit more then that if I'm honest.

Then I would learn something like C++/Java/C# as a standard language. If you want something web based then you can make the back end in something like java/C# (C++ is OK but gets clunkier) and add a web front end using Javascript/HTML5/CSS.

If you want to make smartphone apps learning java and developing on android is the easiest way to go. Iphone stuff is a bit more bespoke, I wouldn't bother learning Objective-C unless you have to.


If you want to get in to games, graphics, machine learning then C++ is the best way to go.

 

[hargi]

To be honest I've done a bit of web design and I'm not really keen on the all creative process of it. I'm much more comfortable trying to get things to work then look pretty.

Back in the day and my first OOP was done in (macramedia) Adobe Director using its Lingo code. We made a space invaders clone. I know that its probably a dead language and only really usedful for games but I understood what was going on.

Probably I have spent to much time on front end stuff and design rather then what im more interested in.

Im thinking C# at the moment as I like the IDE in Visual Studio. Would learning .net just limit me to 'websites' or would I be able to write small windows programs. Something like a program to monitor processes?

 

[jsmoke]

You can do pretty much everything in C# there is even a project going to write an OS in C# although this comes with a whole bunch of extensions, so apart from things like drivers/OS you can pretty much anything, windows apps, windows store apps, web apps...

 

[hargi]

Ok I'm a bit stuck. Have been watching some of the videos on c# fundamentals and get some of the basic stuff

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Week1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Console.WriteLine("how many boxes?");
            //string boxes = Console.ReadLine();
            //Console.WriteLine("How many per box?");
            //string perBox = Console.ReadLine();

            //try
            //{
            //    int total = int.Parse(boxes) * int.Parse(perBox);
            //    Console.WriteLine("Total on wagon = {0}", total);
            //    Console.ReadLine();
            //}
            //catch (System.FormatException)
            //{
            //    Console.WriteLine("Please enter numbers only!");
            //    Console.ReadLine();

            //}
           
        }

        private string Box ()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("How many boxes?");
            string Box = Console.ReadLine();
            return (Box);
        }

        private string NumInBox ()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("How many in the box?");
            string NumInBox = Console.ReadLine();
            return (NumInBox);
        }
        
        private void total (string Box, string NumInBox)
        {
            try
            {
                int total = int.Parse(Box) * int.Parse(NumInBox);
                Console.WriteLine("Total on wagon = {0}", total);
                Console.ReadLine();
            }
            catch (System.FormatException)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Please enter numbers only!");
                Console.ReadLine();
            }
        }

    }
}

The code commented out in the main method is what I wrote it works and I understand it all.
I was then trying to make my own methods to get user inputs and then one to multiply them again ( so doing same as before but more of a OOP approach?. I know its not a good example but just wanted to try it out.)
My thoughs are they all should be private as they are only used in the class. the first two have no inputs and the last one does as it accepts the first two numbers and is void as it returns nothing?.
Is my thinking right even if the implimentation is wrong
I was then going to call them in order from the main method. But this doesn't work

Thanks

 

[robotSocks]

javascript - client (angular) & server (node)

.net now it has been open sourced

avoid ruby and php - they're utter trite and are going to fall by the wayside, like java did years ago

 

[AHarvey]

avoid ruby and php - they're utter trite and are going to fall by the wayside, like java did years ago

Any sources to back that up?