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Kamran launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Alright, now from a Windows developer perspective:

Developing using the .NET framework has come a LONG LONG way. Not only is it all free now, but it's been maturing very fast.

If Windows development interests you, here are my recommendations:

- Go and get Visual Web Developer 2008: http://www.microsoft.com/Express/ It's free and is just as good as the full VS 2008.

- Go and get SQL Server 2008 Express: http://www.microsoft.com/express/sql/default.aspx Again, it's free and is good enough for development environments.

- Start learning C#. DO NOT LEARN VB, it's going away. Lots of companies still use VB so it could be good to learn both languages, they aren't extremely different but C# is smoother and more efficient (VB is slower). It's also similar to JavaScript's syntax so while you're learning JS, C# should come naturally.

- Buy some books. You can learn a lot on the Internet but I learned more through the books I bought. Any of the Pro books are usually good.

- Get familiar with LINQ, Dynamic Data, and ASP.NET MVC, three extremely powerful ways to make high-powered web sites fast. You can literally build a CRUD (admin) interface in minutes with a database using Dynamic Data because it will automatically generate scaffolding (you'll learn) and the forms for you. Just like in PHP, if you want to be awesome you'll need to learn some kind of framework whether it's Ruby on Rails, Drupal, CakePHP, or others.

Whether you use PHP or .NET I would highly recommend learning about the MVC design pattern and n-tier architecture (which is like MVC but can spread across systems). If you work in a corporate environment you will likely come across these terms a lot.

In the end it's up to you. I've been doing .NET development for about 6-7 years now and the past 4 years I've been learning PHP where I work. It really helps with my freelance work because I can do everything from quick small PHP sites to large .NET-driven sites. Sometimes I find myself hating PHP for making me do form logic and other times I hate .NET for not having some of the powerful PHP array functions.

Good luck on your endeavors!

Zachary (Author) launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Actually, Chris McMillian, you in particular might want to check out Kamran's great site as a resource:

http://www.intrepidstudios.com/

Andy Atkinson launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Zach, as a Java software engineer, fairly recent college grad, and as a professional Ruby web developer now for about 9 months, I feel like you really nailed this topic. I wanted to leave a comment to show my support for your answer.

John Pencola launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Good article. I agree that JS has been gaining a lot of momentum but can you elaborate on your comment "Flash is dead (kind of)"? Thanks.

Zachary (Author) launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Hi John,

I'm tempted to do an entire post about Flash being dead actually.

Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera are all supporting features like the Canvas, native video, and native audio. These things are all scriptable through JavaScript, and the speed of JavaScript has actually caught up completely with Flash in at the very least Safari and Chrome... if not Firefox and Opera.

With Flash sites you actually have to do something special if you want to have good SEO, accessible content, and a version of your content that works without Flash.

With JavaScript-based sites on the other hand -- which can function with almost all of the fanciness of a Flash site these days -- a web developer can apply the same SEO and accessibility knowledge they already have... and because of the principle of Progressive Enhancement, you should already have a version of your site that works without JS.

Flash is good at video and 3D graphics (to a certain extent)... but the new native video support added to browsers with the <video> tag makes Flash video unimportant, and 3D graphics in JavaScript are just around the corner.

Google is throwing itself behind JavaScript instead of Flash. Apple is also throwing itself behind a non-Flash web.

The only thing keeping Flash alive is Microsoft. As you will have no doubt noticed, I didn't mention Internet Explorer yet. IE is holding the entire web back, as they've been doing for years and years. They're mostly doing this to protect SilverLight. It is pretty ironic that in trying to protect SilverLight they are actually boosting up Flash.

Realistically, Flash will probably not disappear for 10 years, if ever. Hell, we still have Java applets on some sites!

If Apple caves and puts Flash on the iPhone, then Flash will probably be here to stay for a long time. And I will no longer call it dead.

If IE caves and supports the canvas, video, and audio tags, then that will be it for Flash and SilverLight both. Game over, JavaScript wins.

The good news to any Flash developers out there is that if your ActionScript skills are good, that should translate to JavaScript fairly easily. Well, and actually people are already developing timeline based GUI tools for doing JavaScript animations and applications.

Zach Leatherman launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Go open web! Strange that even though open web technologies don't have a salesperson (with a direct financial interest) promoting them, they are still succeeding. I love it when things that make the most technical sense win.

Gabe da Silveira launched this comment T plus 16 years.

I need to read your blog more, and not via RSS. Landing on earth is the coolest.

Okay, I just wanted to chime in here with one key recommendation. Go get Douglas Crockford's Javascript: The Good Parts. If you're going to write Javascript you need this book because Javascript is such a misunderstood language that most of the books and sample code you find are very misleading. Once you understand the beautiful language that is hiding within Javascript you will be able to create very clean and powerful architectures without relying on leaky attempts at javascript "classes" which don't really exist.

Oh, and once you understand the language core, check out PPK's website and book.

Zachary (Author) launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Hey Gabe!

In retrospect the Rhino book is probably a recommendation that needs qualification. Resig's primer actually gets at the heart of the JavaScript language itself pretty well. Whereas the Rhino book is probably only useful in giving you a frame of reference for using that language to do things like manipulate the DOM.

Sounds like "Javascript: The Good Parts" is another great way to get acquainted with JavaScript-the-language.

Once you wrap your head around the fact that nigh-on-everything happens at *runtime* in JS, the lightbulb really goes on. There's a ton you can do with monkey patches and object decoration for starters. Extending individual objects vs. their prototypes creates a slew of possibilities. And with event driven code you can really decouple stuff to the Nth degree -- it's like the message passing of textbook OOP... but actually practical!

When I started writing entire programs in JavaScript instead of just using it to do a little dynamic DOM stuff here and there, it became one of my favorite languages.

F1LT3R launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Well I don't think IE will have to "cave" to support HTML5, it is touted as one of the IE teams goals. That being said... they really have a lot of ground to catch up and it's going to take one hell of an effort to stay relevant to the developer community.

I do not think that it is "only" Microsoft are keeping Flash alive. Flash is a standard with a strong community built around it and that community consists of workers who specialize in Flash. Some of these guys create amazing masterpieces with Flash, and get paid for the trouble.

I think Flash will slowly fade away as new web-standards are taught to a new generation, who have an open-source mind-set and the ability to accumulate knowledge quickly from shared repositories.

We are beginning to harness the true power of HTML5 and build libraries that utilize it properly, once we have stronger Javascript libraries available for replacing Flash's proven media technology, Javascript will be ready to move into new commercial territory.

Part of the reason I created the Burst Engine (a jQuery-like vector animation engine for the Canvas), was to create animations that we are used to seeing with Flash, that would run on any HTML5 enabled device. Here's an iPhone demo of the Burst Engine in action: http://tinyurl.com/BurstCat

Jason Sack launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Very interesting. Thanks for the insightful thoughts - it is indeed cool to see open standards competing with corporate behemoths. Keeping the platform open is as Sir Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the web to be, and what has allowed it to grow and prosper. The genie is out of the bottle.

John Pencola launched this comment T plus 16 years.

Totally agree.. I have been a long time Flash/Flex developer and over the past couple years or so become less interested/impressed by what Flash/Silverlight plug-ins are capable of doing when compared to open technologies and standards. I just wanted you to elaborate! ;) Definitely worthy of an entirely separate article. Keep up the good work.

Andrew Carter launched this comment T plus 15 years.

I agree 100% with this post, and though it's old, I'd like to add one piece of advice. I learned everything I know from w3schools.com and looking at other people code (like the things on this site!) if you go through the XHTML, CSS, php, mysql, and JavaScript write ups on w3schools, you'll know enough to get started on small projects and work your way up to big ones!

Don H. launched this comment T plus 14 years.

On the "Flash is dead" comment, I have some feelings on that. First, I've been a web developer for 15 years (yes, since 1995!). I've done everything from Photoshop, HTML, Perl, XML, XHTML, CSS, JS, Jquery, JSON, PHP, .net, ASP.. even "FutureSplash" (Flash from way back). Currently I am doing mostly Flex development (Flash) because that's what my job requires. I must say, it is very powerful, and the Eclipse based IDE is really nice. What I hate now and have always hated about Flash is that they constantly update and often force you to mix different versions. Right now I am working in Flash Builder 4 on a very large project that was done in Flex 3 -- mixing the HALO/Spark themes. It is truly a nightmare. I don't mind technology advancing, but it seems like they make a lot of poor decisions and then make you pay for all the upgrades on top of the fact that you have to rewrite apps, re-learn entire frameworks, etc.

Here's my advice. Learn C, C++, Make, any flavor CVS and SQL. Once you master these platforms you will rarely have to re-code/relearn, etc. Best of all, you will get paid at least double the money for skills that are comparable in their difficultly. Web Developers don't get enough love.

Mike F launched this comment T plus 14 years.

Many new developers start with the low-hanging fruit (eg Word Press) and never learn the inner workings of SQL or Object-Oriented programming at all. For this reason, run-time languages like PHP, Perl and Ruby tend to get a bad rap. Understanding the lower-level technologies will allow you to properly assess security and scalability, even if you're just using that information to try to evaluate a new Word Press module. Plus, if that new module doesn't pass muster, your finely honed skills will allow you to write your own smarter version of that lousy module.

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