Programming the Web?
I have decided to try learning programming through web development. It seemed that just going through books and such was too dreadful to be interesting. My current employer was interested in a website so it seemed like the perfect oppoetunity for me to actually have something to pull me along. Now it is the issue of deciding whether going the way of opensource or asp.net. But this is more then deciding a platform for me as I seem to be at a crossroads with Operating System and life philosophy.
I have tried Linux in several iterations always to seemingly be turned off by or just plain disgusted by something. As I have said in a previous post it seems that Linux as desktop is chasing the corporate heels of Windows (yes even Vista!) and now OS X. I don’t know how many programming books I have read as of late where all screeb shots are in OS X and the author makes to no apologies in recommending OS X as a perfect balance between Windows (the clean functional GUI) and the power of the Unix-like command-line (the BSD core). Although at this time the Mac is out of my budget range, so I won’t be commenting on whether or not it is true that the Mac is better thren Windows. Ubuntu to me has come the closest at clean usibility but it is so gosh darn ugly (it seems by design).
I am currently back to using Windows Vista again because it seems that I spend less time chasing down fixes for Linux quirks and more time just using my computer again. I have actually read people ranting on the internet about certain Linux distros functioning too well and being boring to “use”, isn’t that just revealing. Or it’s nice to get a good Linus comment and find out how out of touch he is with the industry as a whole.
I find it very funny when I hear opensource touted for being so much more responsive in fixing bugs and giving users what they want, then I take a look at the typical opensource mailing list and listen to users and other programmers get their proverbial heads chewed off by the “community” maintainers.
Again as I stated inm earlier posts most of this is just rantoing because I’m sure to be back using Linux again on a daily basis but these are things I hope to see improve but until they do maybe my rants will be at the very least enlightening.
Oh and I didn’t even mention my dliemna should I concentrate on Django(Python), PHP or ASP.NET to help me forward in my programming journey. Just today I purchased a book about building a real live Django application from scratch and it has somewhat excited my learning today. Maybe learning without having something to apply it too just doesn’t work for me. I have heard other people say that they can’t learn programming languages without having a problem to solve which makes sense to me. Most dry reference like programming tutorials lose me very quickly.
PS If anyone is wondering how my CS degree is going, I have not been able to afford to continue. Although it was very encouraging to me to have done so well in the first CS class I had taken (maybe one day I will be the great hacker I dream of becoming)
Well until next time!
God Bless
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Hi Joe,
You are touching on a lot of things in this post
Let me give you my perspective about a few. First, welcome to the world of programming! If you like solving problems then you will love programming. Your approach and operating system choice depends on your eventual goal. This is also where Linux comes in. I have personally found Linux to be an excellent learning environment. You have access the source code for pretty much everything and you will find people tinkering with and excited about almost any part of it. The one main limiting factor here will be time.
Every OS has its place. I personally use Windows as my main OS and I like it for my main use. Whenever I want to learn I log into Linux. I have picked up many useful programs that I probably wouldn’t have learned about in a Windows only environment. I am talking about vim (pretty much an OS by itself
), grep, and awk to name a few. A few of these are so useful that I now always install cygwin on my Windows workstations. A lot of this also depends on what you job involves. If you are doing something that doesn’t involve much text processing then these utilities might not be much helpful.
Let me tell you one thing, you will never find “the” operating system of choice. Every OS has its good and bad sides. You have to figure out which has the most positives for you and then stick to it for a little while. Also, given how things are changing, your OS of choice will most probably change. So, explore as many as you can and choose.
I am sad to see that you weren’t able to continue your CS education. A good structured program can be a very good place to get into the world of programming. Also, a degree is what gives companies _confidence_ in your skills. You other option is to “prove” yourself by producing good results, which can be much harder than going through a degree.
I can keep going on and on about each one of your topics, but I must stop
(time, always the limiting factor). Just like with OS, the choice of ASP.NET, PHP or Django depends on your goals. I love Django, but I haven’t done much of ASP.NET recently (post 2.x version) so I can’t say much about that. I would suggest learning the concepts behind programming instead of learning one specific language because before you know it there will be a new language, a new “best framework” that you might have to move to 
Good luck!