Not much of a linguist but I do know quite a number of languages, To the geek this is relative.. as we may not immediately think about literal language such as nihongo ( japanese ) or espanol (spanish). I’m really refering to programming languages. I’ve been programming since about 14 or so about A late start yes but I think I’ve dabbled in quite a few languages in which I can confidently develop.

Visual Basic 6 - The first language i think i really picked up after understanding basic psuedo code and algorithms. I was told to start with cue basic but I really didn’t feel to go back that far to be honest. The vb applications i created really weren’t that fascinating simple stuff like calculators and so on.

FoxPro - I wanted some dbms application development skills under my belt. Foxpro was quite simple very familiar to a visual basic developer as it was all the same. Drag and drop to a form type of rapid application development, set attributes link to access database resource. Fairly simple.

C - This was when i kind of got bored of drag and drop stuff and wanted to get more hands on with a syntax editor. C was a shortlived language for me however as i quickly moved on because of the lack of object supports. Structures got the job done kinda the same but i liked classes because of data encapsulation capabilities.

C++ - Probably my favorite language and also it is clearly responsible for my programming potential today. I did more applications in C++ than anything else in the world. Most of them really weren’t useful as they were mainly console based applications. That was untill i took up c++ winapi programming. Where my first application was a text editor that whoops notepad’s ass. However it wasn’t the most efficiently written application. It also had a huge flaw when you closed the application it wouldn’t unload from system memory :(. I still have the exe I will dig it up and host it for download.

PhP - for my final project for college i decided i wanted to do something different. We were all accustomed to Gui applications of a desktop nature. meaning ran from the operating system only.  I had read a little bit about web applications that got the job done just as good as software applications. The web apps were also more portable as the language which was popular could run on both windows and Linux servers. I insisted that my final project group develop a web application which syncs with the major bookstore’s in Jamaica inventory systems. End users could search and locate books at x location  and approach the store closest and most convenient for them. Also it should have had e-commerce capabilities but I never got that far in time for project presentation. Taking on the task of learning php was fairly simple as the syntax was very much like c++ or c. The only thing that gave me a little problem was Sql - structured query language. I with the help of a friend got over that hurdle and completed my first web application. I fell in love with web applications and now I work as a web application developer and have learnt quite a few more languages to extend my web application development skills and capabilities.

JavaScripting - People may say its not a language but it is definatly recognized as one for me. You can accomplish so much through use of javascript. The new rage on the internet ajax (asynchronous javascript and xml) wouldn’t be possible without the javascript would it.

Xml - which is fairly simple its just how you order stuff in my oppinion. You have the freedome of creating your own tags. I found a book on sale at a bookstore for like 200 dollars for xml. Thats how i knocked it off. form introduction to the concept to creating xml applications styled with xsl sheets and much more.

Java - I just had to learn this.  Did both console and swing (gui) just for the fun of it. I wanted to go a bit further and take it to the web application forefront but never got there. This is probably the most portable of programming languages out there. A friend of mine has done some amazing thing through utilization of java for web application development.

Those are my confident languages.

I have done very little with the following but if i wanted i know i could completely develop in them

Asp - which really isn’t a language but a method of utilizing other languages for creating dynamic web pages. without javascript, vbscript, c#(sharp) and an array of others there could be no asp.

Perl - had to learn a bit of this to hack an upgrade script for a very archaic forum software the utilized (yabbse) stay away from it.

Ruby - Learnt  abit of this from being impressed by ruby on rails

So what do you know. leave a comment :)  i just might have a job for you.

It’s really is sad when programmers make applications that don’t conform to core principles of programming and databases that don’t conform to saidprinciples of relational database management. Why do this. It makes one persons live easier and creates eternal turmoil and damnation for all those who are punished in the form of working with said kind of system. I believe in being open minded, That developers grow through their career, that applications that i have built before may be scoffed at and deemed as written in the most inefficient manner. but nay.. i say.. Not like this. Recently I have been given the task of working on an international *will remain unnamed website*l and omfg never have i seen more unconventional pragmatic progression of code. Manually maintained unique identifiers @_@, in line configuration switches, NO CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR A CONTENT DRIVEN WEBSITE WHICH RELY ON A DATABASE.
With all that said I’m sure you can understand how annoyed i must feel coming in contact with such an archaic system. I foresee major reverse engineering to move forward in a more efficient and i will not hold my tongue SMARTER manner that the previous developers did.

I’m all for deleting the current system and do a complete remake however it would have to be a phased implementation because the *unnamed website* is in the business of daily releases therefore it cannot go a single day without being functional.

The general moral behind this post is, PLEASE CONFORM TO STANDARDS be it programmatic, database related, how to fold a piece of paper i don’t care. It makes things simpler for everyone in the end.

I’ve been a web application developer for several years and I have began working systematically as of late (finally). There are a few things that without them I feel lost as a developer and need them for debugging and testing my web applications before deployment. These tools are mostly available through firefox or rather real web browsers, (ones that use the gecko engine).

1. Web developer tool bar - the masterer plugin of the lot. With this you can easily disable java, javascript, manage cookies, view css, edit css, manipulate forms (auto form fill - because we know manually filling out forms for testing is the pits). manipulate images, outline tables for debugging, and tonnes more.. You must have this if you are a web developer or hope to be one.  Get the web developer toolbar extension for firefox
2. Css Viewer - Very nice css overlay tool which shows a overlay box with all the properties of whatever you hover your mouse over, showing the title of the class applied to it as well as the class’s details. Get Css Viewer extension for firefox
3. Colorzilla - This plugin allows you to suck the color from any page element. See a color like it want the hex color code for it. You click on color zilla click on the color and double click the color zilla icon and there’s the hex value. Sadly there is some situation with this plugin and linux or rather ubuntu (from my experience). It was working at one instance but since dapper drake I have had no luck with it. Get colozilla extension for firefox
4. Measurit - What dimensions should i make a banner to fit into this space on that web page. Measure it gives an overlay over the page where you can measure spaces in rectangular / square units and get exact pixel dimensions. A very handy tool. Get Measure extension it for firefox
5. I.E tab- I honestly wish this extension didn’t have to exist (see stance on internet explorer here). However.. sigh.. this extension allows you to preview the developed page using internet explorers rendering engine from within firefox. Therefore you can ensure that your pages render properly and looks the same in both browsers. Get Ie. Tab extension for firefox

That is the end of my tools i utilize from firefox relative to web development.

On the actual development side of things get a copy of php, mysql and apache. You may download these separately from php.net mysql.com and apache.org , install them individually then get them talking to each other in unison. If you are a windows user you may chose to get an installer which does that for you. example of popular ones are wamp and appserv. If you are an ubuntu linux user you may simple open a terminal and run this command

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server

supply your password and this will download and install and configure thh applications for you.

These will both setup php, mysql, apache and also another useful tool phpmyadmin which makes it easier to administer your mysql databases. The great thing about these webdevelopment tools which i have discussed is They are all 100% open source Free for usage :D. After installing using which ever method you so desired open your web browser (hopefully firefox) and type local host or 127.0.0.1 to access your local web server.

With relation to coding. I use bluefish as my weapon, I have messed around with nvu on small occasions but I tend to use bluefish most of the time as nvu generally encodes my html entities meaning <?php becomes < and so on. In days long long ago in a land not so far away when I was a windows user I would typically use edit+ or dreamweaver as my coding tool.

Hope this helps. Be not affraid to ask via comment if shrouded by darkness is your understanding.

It’s really is sad when programmers make applications that don’t conform to core principles of programming and databases that don’t conform to saidprinciples of relational database management. Why do this. It makes one persons live easier and creates eternal turmoil and damnation for all those who are punished in the form of working with said kind of system. I believe in being open minded, That developers grow through their career, that applications that i have built before may be scoffed at and deemed as written in the most inefficient manner. but nay.. i say.. Not like this. Recently I have been given the task of working on an international *will remain unnamed website* and omfg never have i seen more unconventional pragmatic progression of code. Manually maintained unique identifiers @_@, in line  configuration switches, NO CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR A CONTENT DRIVEN WEBSITE WHICH RELY ON A DATABASE.

With all that said I’m sure you can understand how annoyed i must feel coming in contact with such an archaic system. I foresee major reverse engineering to move forward in a more efficient and i will not hold my tongue SMARTER manner that the previous developers did.

I’m all for deleting the current system and do a complete remake however it would have to be a phased implementation because the *unnamed website* is in the busienss of daily releases therefore it cannot go a single day without being functional.

The general moral behind this post is, PLEASE CONFORM TO STANDARDS be it programmatic, database related, how to fold a piece of paper i don’t care. It makes things simpler for everyone in the end.