Maximum PC

A little background first, i lost my job about a year and half ago. i was a Coldfusion programmer for almost 6 years. in the West Michigan area, their is very little Coldfusion jobs around so i am looking for a new language to program in.

I have a application that i can use for a test bed and to get me better at programming in the new language

C# is fun. I'm a full time ASP.NET/C# developer and have always loved C#. My first job was in C#, though I do dabble in other languages and frameworks.

ASP.NET is a great place to start, but it's not highly recommended from me. C# is a terse language with LOTS of moving parts. Honestly, ramping up to ASP.NET is not as fast as say, Ruby on Rails or Coldfusion. If you look at the trends for the web, the big names are:

- Ruby on Rails
- jQuery
- HTML5/CSS3

Start with Ruby on Rails. There are plenty of free tutorials and it is supported by a multitude of web hosts. Rails 3.0 is still the major version, 3.1 is going to go live soon. I found it easy to ramp up with Rails, partly because the framework does so much of the work for you. You could go with ASP.NET MVC, but I don't really see a lot of jobs for it. Most startups will go with Ruby on Rails, if you want the quickest lead time and get up and running and find a job, go for this. Most Ruby on Rails guys will have five years of software development experience but only one or two years of Rails, so this will work in your favor.

If you need links:

Ruby on Rails site
Rails for Zombies (a learning site)
Rails Casts
Rails Tutorial (Michael Hartl)

Honestly, I love Rails Tutorial (bottom) and Rails Casts is a great place to expand your knowledge when you feel comfortable.

I think thet the best chice for you is to learn PHP or Java.

On the Web you can find a lot of tutorials. And If you like to have books, you should buy something about PHP & MySQL (for example PHP & MySQL - Introduction, Michele E. Davis, Jon A. Philips)

Tutorials: http://www.phpdeveloper.org/tutorials

Java's outmoded and doesn't have a solid web framework. PHP's nice and I usually recommend it, but Rails is a far superior framework. Ruby is an easy language to learn as well; it's Object Oriented and it's actually easy to use.

Plus with Ruby, you could go Sinatra (a web DSL that looks like the Rails routes file) and Rails. PHP is a nice language, but if he needs work ASAP, Ruby is soooooooo easy to pick up.

Programming with PHP is like masturbating with sandpaper glued to your hands...

Thanks, you just ruined happy hour for me.

I've heard pretty good comments about Grails from people. Have you tried it?


I'm just going to pretend that you started happy hour waaayyyyy before posting that comment! =)

I take back what I said about Java, since I've never played with Grails. Do you know if there's a true MVC framework for Java? I know I can run JRuby which is a Ruby VM running on top of the JVM. Supposedly, it provides better threading/fiber processing than MRI (Matz Ruby Interpreter). You can even run JRuby with Rails!


LOL!!! I usually don't if they want to get serious with PHP. It's a nice web framework to get started with, but not a nice language to keep up with. If the person is interested in developing for the web, PHP's a way to go. Honestly, with Rails taking off and Ruby having that strong CS background behind it, I typically recommend Ruby more often (just Ruby, not necessarily Rails).

And have you ever heard about the Opa programming language?

No, so I looked it up. It looks interesting.

My take it on these languages is that they're typically niche languages. I'm not sure how well it'll play out, considering that the Cloud is a generic term and the biggest cloud services are Joyent, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google. Architecture for the cloud hasn't been defined yet, if it has, it's loosely defined - I'm sure Opa is a decent tool but it solves a niche problem.

I typically don't recommend a language unless it has a strong community behind it. Python, Ruby, Perl, C# and PHP have strong communities behind them. Opa's too small and too niche, though I'm curious to see what becomes of it.

I think ASP.Net is good choice to learn. There are certain reasons for it is like asp.net have choice to select programming language like vb or c Sharp.ASP.Net is integrated technologies like wpf,wcf, silverlight. ASP.net has also facility for error handling where as php is behind in this features.

ASP.NET is a good choice, but stay away from web forms. Learn ASP.NET MVC 3 if you can, it promotes web standards and is easier to learn than web forms. Web Forms has a lot of intricate concepts like Viewstate, which is a pain. Also, Web Forms pattern is a little convoluted and, while it allows you to create sites quick, they suck because they're slow.

Web Forms is Microsoft's attempt to make WinForms for the web. They reinvented the wheel, IMO, and the entire request model for ASP.NET Web Forms is broken. Web Forms only offers rapid prototyping as its advantage but if you want a scalable architecture look elsewhere.

I'm using MVC3 right now with Entity Framework 4.2 (Code First, DB Generation) and Ninject as my DI container. Highly recommended.

I don't know that I would say that. On the start you don't really need to know about the viewstate. I can't argue with the rest though

Code first is awesome for prototyping and early dev, but I don't know that it would be good for advanced projects. I like to start working with my database and then drop some data in and look at it from there. Personal preference I think there.

You could use DbInitializer to seed your database, you know. I have some seed data that gets me going, then as I code, I obviously add more data. The nice thing about EF Code First isn't just prototyping, but the tables reflect the object model. The bad thing? Performance. EF is still kinda crappy and a terrible object model means you can't drop EF hints as effectively.

Have you played around with dapper.net? I haven't tried it yet but I'd like to give it a go and see how easy it is to use.

Webforms was nice if you want to prototype, but i wouldn't build a web app on it. Viewstate just consumes too much space. MVC 3 has tons of nice mechanisms like dependency injection containers that make architecting a scalable app pretty easy. It's not free, but at least the framework plays well with building those scalable apps.

you dont have to show up to work to program, why dont you just tele commute. Its programming not manual labor so it can be done anywhere. I think it would be better if you worked for a company from home rather then try to learn a new programming language. Although php would be useful

That depends on regulations and company policy. My last job was in healthcare and working telecommute was poo-poo'ed upon due to the number of HIPAA regulations. Not all companies offer telecommute positions and even if you can find one, could you guarantee that it's a job that fits his skillset?

Second, as developers, we're always learning. My new job has me on my toes; I'm always learning something new and I'm always picking up a new skill. Good developers are polyglots; programming in multiple languages regardless of platforms. If you want to work in today's industry, you have to learn something that's a hot topic. Sure, PHP is fine and there's a huge PHP investment out there. Ruby on Rails is huge and so is ASP.NET MVC 3. Coldfusion, maybe not so much...

Third, your overwhelming assumption of "it'd be better if you worked for a company from home rather than learn a new programming language" is kind of base and incorrect. With point #2, if you want to remain employed as a software engineer you need to learn new things. New languages and such. Finding a company that lets you work from home is like saying "instead of putting gas in your car when it runs out, move near one of your coworkers so you can car pool together". It doesn't solve his problem at all.