Best Development Solution For a Development Apprentice Like Myself
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If you do end up using ASP.NET, make sure you look into MVC. This is how most modern web application development is done. No matter what tool set you use, MVC is the standard. The most common MVC toolkit out there is Rails (from Ruby on Rails fame.)
ServerFault and StackOverflow were pioneers on ASP.NET's MVC framework. It is very mature and robust now.
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Avoid tools like Access and LightSwitch. These are "lock in" tools meant to duplicate the mistakes of the past (locking people into expensive databases, clients, etc.) When developing your own code, don't create technical debt for no reason. Use this as a chance to make things better.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I'll have a lot of thoughts here so I will try to throw them at you one at a time
First one: ASP.NET isn't a language, it's a web extension to .NET which, itself, is a platform and not a language. The languages that you should consider on .NET are C# and F#. F# is super crazy advanced and awesome but until you are a full time developer I would not even look at it. So, if doing anything in the .NET or ASP.NET world, I would stick to C# exclusively. It is an excellent, powerful and easy to use language. It's Microsoft's flagship.
Yes, my next MVA course is C#...there is also a lot of good Channel 9 C# classes in addition to my Lynda.com...:)
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I would, when looking at fresh (green field) development of this nature, consider very, very strongly moving to neutral tooling rather than tooling that exists only for a single platform. C# and .NET are great tools, really powerful, and Visual Studio is now free and .NET is beginning to be ported to other platforms (like Mac OSX and Linux) but it is very Microsoft-centric unnecessarily and today, it is not neutral yet.
Moving to neutral tools means cost savings and protection against future licensing changes. It means greater flexibility and less technical debt. It is protection against future changes.
Tools to heavy consider include Python + Django, Ruby on Rails, Node.js (JavaScript) and even PHP. Also avoid SQL Server and look to PostgreSQL or even MariaDB instead.
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Ruby on Rails has really been the industry darling for a while now. Very powerful, tons of users out there, good tools available and very easy to rapidly make applications.
Although these days Node.js is getting a LOT of attention.
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Ruby, Node, Python... all good choices.
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Node.js is what is used to run MangoLassi. Spiceworks is built on Ruby on Rails.
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I tend to want to put all my eggs in one basket and learn all of this at the same time...backing up, I simply have to become pretty good at VBA...got another sheet today doing funky things...I've got to study VBA arrays and get a grasp on them too as most of these sheets have a lot of arrays and a ton of loops...
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VBA is so far removed from any other development.... it would be best to completely just consider that to be a different animal. VBA is not VB. There is no escaping VBA for Office automation, just how it is. But there is no real benefit to tying everything else that you do to that. Just going to make things horrible going forward.
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@scottalanmiller said:
VBA is so far removed from any other development.... it would be best to completely just consider that to be a different animal. VBA is not VB. There is no escaping VBA for Office automation, just how it is. But there is no real benefit to tying everything else that you do to that. Just going to make things horrible going forward.
I hear ya...there may be no escaping VBA...and I want to absorb all the training I can on it because it will also help me better understand the mounds of data that goes into these from our Metal Building Software...
But that said, I've got C# and Ruby on Rails on my list once this is done...
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I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
Right...should have said C# is next...then Ruby...may take the rest of 2015 considering even getting up at 4:30 for more study time, I still don't have much study time...
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@garak0410 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
Right...should have said C# is next...then Ruby...may take the rest of 2015 considering even getting up at 4:30 for more study time, I still don't have much study time...
I meant until you are a professional developer not doing a role in IT, you should stick to just one.
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Start here for Ruby on Rails...
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I recommend using BitBucket and RubyMine too. BitBucket is my favourite hosted GIT repo. RubyMine is widely considered the best IDE for Ruby, although it is super powerful meaning that it takes a bit of work to get everything working properly.
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I should mention that it is $99 for RubyMine out of your own pocket. But a great investment if you are going to be writing a lot of Ruby.
For free, I would use Atom which can be downloaded from Github.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I wouldn't work on C# and Ruby, I would just do one or the other. At least until you are pretty comfortable. Doing both will make things much harder.
Right...should have said C# is next...then Ruby...may take the rest of 2015 considering even getting up at 4:30 for more study time, I still don't have much study time...
I meant until you are a professional developer not doing a role in IT, you should stick to just one.
Got it...
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Oh, I wont cram it in during my VBA push, but I'd love to brush up on scripting too...:)
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@garak0410 said:
Oh, I wont cram it in during my VBA push, but I'd love to brush up on scripting too...:)
Ruby is a scripting language.
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Well, here I am a year later and can honestly say, no progress on this at all. Just no time to learn to shift into being a 50/50 admin/developer. Between "day to day" at work and being involved in kids activities, family, church and community, it seems impossible to try to fill this 50/50 role they want of me.
Back to square one...95% of our "stuff" is still Excel and VBA. So, I've got to stay there for the time being. So,, can't look ahead at many of the helpful suggestions.
I document all I do in Spiceworks and provide my open and closed tickets to my manager weekly for our short Monday meeting. They trust me and often say they they like the fact they don't have to follow up on me since I do my job and provide updates.
But I've reached a point where I am going to have to admit my struggles with this. It isn't so much as learning this stuff is hard but the fact this VBA code is so messy and with very little comments and hard to to understand the logic.
On top of that...they now are asking about putting Excel data on web based options, including the cloud.
So this wasn't so much a rant or a call for help than it is sharing struggles we in SOLO IT shops face. I wouldn't trade this job right now for anything, but I also don't want to lose value in their eyes.
