A Technology Blog by Alan James
Last time I covered what Node.js is and briefly covered creating server side JavaScript applications with it. But as part of my recent desire to write everything in JavaScript I have also started writing mobile applications in JavaScript using Cordova.
I’ve written mobile applications in various technolgies and even have some on the Google Play Store, but I like writing mobile applications in Cordova more than other technology I’ve used, which are Java and Flex with Adobe AIR.
One of the biggest hangups I had when starting to program was deciding what technology to use. At the time I was only writing server side code and was working in shared hosting, so my options were limited to various versions of PHP.
Within the last year I started using cloud hosting and thus gained the ability to configure my servers to use any language I wanted. Shortly after realizing this a small amount of fear came over me. The choice of language wasn’t made for me anymore, I would have to pick from a giant pool of languages. I would also be spending at least three months learning all about this language I picked before I would feel secure in it. After that three months I might not like it and would have wasted three months of my life.
At the time I was doing a lot of freelance and was instructor at a college teaching web development. Because I was teaching I wanted to know the basics of all the languages I could use on the server, just in case my students asked me about them.
I knew the basics of most of these languages but I had never written anything substantial in them. So, over one long weekend I locked myself in a room and started writing hello world, testing frameworks, making CRUD, overall building projects in every language and every framework I could get my hands on.
Four days later here are the four things I learned.