Posts by Category: Miscellaneous
The Relentless March of Net Technology
When I initially decided to investigate this whole web development scene some years ago the options seemed to be, at the time, numerous. Learn PHP on the server-side, get a better understanding of HTML, learn how to use CSS, erm, and maybe learn some JavaScript. I think that was it. Nothing too challenging, nothing out of my reach. I recall that, at the time, the main consideration was, am I going to be a web designer and focus on design, HTML and CSS or a web developer and focus on server-side scripting and client-side development? I'm neatly avoiding the whole other consideration of, if I chose b) web developer would I concentrate on server-side or client-side development.
In those first years the idea of producing a web application was at the forefront of my mind. I made the transition from PHP to Ruby on Rails and began to make some slow progress. Actually, truth be told, I've still not written the damned web app that I had in mind years ago. That idea was put on ice while I developed my blog which is the only useful thing (and that's debatable dear reader) that I've done with Rails. The problem that I had with Rails, well one of the problems, was that I hadn't made the effort to learn the Ruby language. This meant that I was a little stuck if I had to create my own plug-ins or attempt to understand the logic of a plug-in written by someone else. For this reason (and others) I decided to walk away from Rails and to return to PHP. I've recently been working with PHP code in my real job while making some changes to a Moodle installation, the open-source course management system. I decided to take a look at CakePHP which, to be honest, is the route I took to Ruby on Rails in the very first place. After just a short while investigating CakePHP I got annoyed with its authentication system and, during a Google search for CakePHP authentication tutorials, found myself looking into the Yii PHP framework instead.
At this precise point in time, as I write this blog entry, I know that I should see my original plan through. I should write my little web app, write it with PHP possibly using the Yii framework, and just get the flaming thing done. I've got reminders to get this app done, on my whiteboard next to my PC and in the form of an electronic sticky note on my PC desktop.
One of the problems I have is coming home from work and actually having the energy and the enthusiasm to do more work at the computer; most sessions seem to deteriorate into a web surfing session. The other problem is that of procrastination. In fact I'm not sure if I mean procrastination. I mean that is an issue for me but I also have a habit of having an idea, for a web project for example, starting to produce something and then being distracted by either yet another idea or by a new piece of web technology. Hmmm, perhaps it is simply procrastination. The earliest example of this is starting a project in PHP and then deciding to learn Ruby on Rails and continuing the project in Rails instead.
But the technology of the web is an issue. There is so much to learn, or rather so much that one can learn, and it's impossible to learn all of it and to be able to master all of it. But maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just lazy. When I began to write this post the following link appeared in my RSS feed, "Web development will become much more complicated", an article from the Flash Blog site. I found the last paragraph of this piece especially interesting.
I have found during the past 12 months or so that my interest in various web technologies has been driven by my entrepreneurial desire rather than, let's say, being guided by what may be a useful employment / future work prospect (which was my original drive behind my work). By this I mean that I've spent a small amount of time looking at things such as virtual worlds and Unity3D (seeing a possible growth trend here) rather than learning jQuery (I'm throwing in a random example here) and improving my existing skillset that may make me more attractive to a future employer. I'm currently wondering about attempting to cash-in on the iPhone app market and online games which is a growing market I keep hearing. The lure of the iPhone app arena comes purely down to the fact that there seems to be a captive audience and the fact that someone purchasing one of those apps doesn't need to mess about with credit cards and the like. I've also considered the FaceBook market for similar reasons.
So currently I'm looking at the following development possibilities:
Development of apps with AS3 / Flex
Development of apps with JavaScript, possibly using jQuery
Development of apps on the iPhone platform
Development of games with AS3 (possibly accessed via FaceBook)
Development of games with Unity3D
Server-side development to support an app, probably PHP and a framework such as Yii
Server-side development to support a game, possibly using something like SmartFoxServer or Player.IO or Red5
That's my list of things so far and I may well have forgotten something! I've not bothered to mention Java, which I briefly thought about returning to recently, or Silverlight or Python or the whole Google App Engine thing. I've dropped the Virtual World idea from my list, however I've just realised that Unity3D is still on the list. As far as Unity3D is concerned the simple truth is that I didn't have fun when I explored the tools. It felt that I should spend some time learning how to use a 3D package and, indeed, I began to teach myself Blender. I'm sure that I would have enjoyed it if I'd persevered but I didn't. I also didn't really like using the editor in Unity3D to place 3D objects. I'm sure that, if I'd made more effort with the tutorials and other training resources, I would have discovered how to place things precisely using code alone but that seemed a long way off as I waded through tutorials which seemed to focus on how to use the editor and didn't explain the code being used, which was my main interest really. Anyway I'm straying from the point and rambling.
What was the point of this post anyway? Ah yes, to take a look at the growing array of technologies that are available to the, let's say, web developer or internet developer. Then to look at the areas that I'd like to explore and to devise some form of route, to put some form of plan in place that will encourage me and get me studying and learning and developing. At the moment I only seem to be overwhelmed by the possible pathways and have only a vague idea of where I'd like to be.
AS3 development seems to appear, well, twice in my list of 'possibilities'. In fact some weeks ago I thought of developing a mini-site (sub-domain off my main site kind of thing), written in PHP, using the CakePHP framework and probably using Flex / AS3 on the client-side. If I swap the CakePHP framework for the Yii framework instead then perhaps I'm very close to outlining a first project.
Essentially I'm talking here about returning to my web app idea that I've had for a very long time now, the one mentioned at the beginning of this post. An idea that I've had for a long time but have never seen through. I think that it's about time that I saw this project through. Then and only then I can perhaps look at my ideas for writing online games or iPhone apps and take it from there.
Ah, the relief, finally a plan, of sorts.
Posted by Graham Blake on 11th February 2010 at 11:12