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General Discussion

Languages and Databases???

Currently I can write html, css , JavaScript and JQuery. I know want to push on my skills and from asking around, posting on treehouse it seems I need to learn a language like ruby,python, php and a database. I'm currently researching myself but I thought I ask here as well. So here are my questions?

What are the things to consider when choosing between ruby, Python and PHP?

What options do I have in terms of databases?

Also where does AJAX and Java fit in web development?

I understand these are quite broad questions so any direction to articles I can read or videos to watch will be very helpful

1 Answer

Hello Troy,

Depends on what you want to do front-end or back-end.

If you decide to go back-end you have to learn a back-end language such as Ruby, Python and PHP. Now I am that much into Python but I do program with PHP and Ruby. Ruby for me is a language that is easier to learn by people who already know a back-end language such as PHP.

Those languages are widely used with SQL standard databases so I suggest you learn a database management system suck as MySQL. There are also so called noSQL databases you can google them if you are more interested. The most used database management system for noSQL databases is probably mongoDB.

As for AJAX. Here are some of the main uses for it:

Update a web page without reloading the page Request data from a server - after the page has loaded Receive data from a server - after the page has loaded Send data to a server - in the background

Now about Java. Java is not a back-end or front-end language. Yes it can be used for back-end with some software but that is something that not many people use. So I get the sense that you mean JavaScript? JavaScript is great you can use it for front-end and back-end (with node.js for example).