0

my name is Tabetha and I have a question... I am a web designer, but I always find that while designing the layout and coding the design I come up with great ideas for websites. I would like to know where I need to start in order to learn back-end programming not only for the knowledge, but also for the challenge of it. I have searched online but can't seem to find the information I am looking for. If anyone can give me a simple, straight-forward "this is what language you need to learn" answer, or perhaps guide me in the right direction I would appreciate it ten-fold. I am a complete noob when it comes to this, so even the most basic information is probably a pearl of wisdom for me. :)

Fred Foo
  • 355,277
  • 75
  • 744
  • 836
Tabetha Moe
  • 480
  • 4
  • 14

5 Answers5

3

With this type of question you will never one simple, straight-forward answer :) Are you a Mac person? If so, you'll probably want to learn PHP or Ruby on Rails for server-side programming, along with MySQL for your database. These technologies are widely used on other operating systems, including Windows. The Apache web server and PHP is included in Mac OS X; Rails is easy to set up. Most hosting providers will offer cheap LAMP hosting packages (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) (Google "LAMP tutorial")

If you're a PC person, you might want to learn about .NET (VB or C#), SQL Server and IIS. There are many similarities in the development practices between the different technologies, with MVC being the recommended design pattern. Understanding MVC is important.

There are many other "back-end" technologies, including JAVA, ColdFusion, etc, but PHP/MySQL is the most common.

You could also learn about server-side content management systems, like Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla to name a few. These systems take care of much of the low level data handling, leaving you to focus more on the content and appearance, while sacrificing some flexibility.

Good luck!

James
  • 4,117
  • 2
  • 18
  • 13
  • Fantastic suggestions James. I am definitely a Mac person, but I have both, so I wouldn't mind learning both. I am following Will's suggestion as of now and learning the Zend Framework and then I will delve into PHP and MySQL. I appreciate your guidance. I am looking forward to possibly one day being the one answering the questions instead of asking them on here. =^_^= – Tabetha Moe Jan 15 '11 at 09:42
  • I would also recommend looking at some of the suggestions from these posts: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a-developer-know-before-building-a-public-web-site – James Jan 15 '11 at 21:06
  • @James got more information than I was looking for, great answer indeed! +(0^0) – pnizzle Mar 31 '14 at 03:20
1

Just to add my two cents. Programming language is in reality not as important as having general knowledge of the principles. Look at it this way: knowing how to program is the same as knowing how to design. Programming language is then only a tool, like photoshop, that you can excel in, but it won't make you a designer by itself.

The concepts that are important for web back-end development and actually a must-know if you're in for a challenge, are object-oriented programming, separation of presentation and computational logic, database abstraction, networking protocols (http specifically).

Understanding these essentials will pay off greatly as compared to learning the quick-and-dirty ways of combining php with html.

Dennis Kreminsky
  • 2,117
  • 15
  • 23
  • I was reading about a bit of those concepts in the Zend Framework link that Will sent me and I checked them off on my "List to Learn". You are very right, those are very important aspects to programming. I didn't recognize all the ones you listed, so I have jotted those down as well on my "List to Learn." It looks like I definitely have my work cut out for me. Thank you for your two cents. d'-'b – Tabetha Moe Jan 15 '11 at 09:46
0

To get you started with backend development, i would suggest u learn how a database (db) works and the various database management systems (DBMS), particularly relational DBMS (RDBMS) such as MySQL, SQL server, oracle, postGRESQL, Microsoft Access, etc. You will come 2 know that most DBMS allow u to communicate with them and issues commands to them by speaking to them a language called Structured Query Language (SQL). So u will need to invest some time to learn the basics of speaking the SQL language to create a database, store new data or modify existing data, fetch data from the db, or even delete data that is no longer needed from your db. In particular i suggest u learn how MySQL works and issuing commands to MySQL since it is the most widely used DBMS in most web projects. Then, you will need to spend some time to learn about computer programming (issuing instructions to computer) and programming languages (the languages used for writing the instructions). You can zero down to learning how to speak a particular computer language such as PHP. The reason u have to learn how programming languages work is that u will need to speak a computer language (programming language) to write the logic for interacting with your database (e.g verifying that some conditions hold true before certain data can be fetched). I suggest u start by learning the PHP language as your backend programming language, since it is the most widely used in web projects. In the programming langnuage u have chosen to learn (e.g php), find out how to issue SQL commands to a RDBMS from that language. In summary, i recommend you learn the combination of PHP and MySQL since this combination is the most widely used for backend web development. But once u get a grasp of how things really work, you can always switch to whatever combination of technologies works best for your particular project. I hope this helps.

herbuy
  • 1
  • 1
0

PHP is probably the most commonly used backend end language, and will probably give the least problems when setting it up in a server. I would recommend using a Framework (at least to start), both for ease of use and security issues. For this I'd recommend the Zend Framework. There's a great tutorial for getting started here: http://www.survivethedeepend.com/.

Will
  • 4,498
  • 1
  • 21
  • 20
0

I am a heavy advocate of .NET languages for beginners. The .NET framework is nice and easy to wrap your head around because Microsoft is great with documentation, tutorials, and giving a complete package.

As you already have knowledge of HTML I would look into ASP .NET or ASP .NET MVC. This website from Microsoft will take you from start to finish in developing a website in ASP .NET and ASP .NET MVC.

Once you start programming with Visual Studio you will see how easy Microsoft makes it for you.

jonperl
  • 871
  • 1
  • 10
  • 22