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General Discussion

Matthew Bingham
Matthew Bingham
11,927 Points

New track request: SaaS / Web Application

Hi,first of all - great site, I've learnt a lot already and am particularly interested in honing my skills so that I may be able to build a web application. You have covered many subjects that give users the basics of how to do this, but it would be nice to see a further "track" or "deep dive" exploring the development of Software as a service or building a web application. I would be particularly interested in learning more on the following subjects:

  • Basic environment set up
  • Tools and technologies required
  • Setting up access permissions
  • When a user signs up, how to allow them to choose (and implement) auto sub-domains
  • Taking payments through the website
  • Taking backups of the environment

This is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm sure other users with have suggestions on other lessons that can be added.

  • Matt

3 Answers

RJ McCollam
RJ McCollam
16,823 Points

Great subject that I think a lot of people (including myself) are interested in. The challenge I see the Treehouse Team having though is that there isn't a one track fits all. SaaS apps and the technologies that they use are so varying that I think the route Treehouse has decided to take is to give you the tools you need to learn the languages necessary in order to build something rather then say this is the way. Go through the PHP and Ruby tracks and see what language you feel most comfortable with. Then run through the business tracks that they have. They have all of the pieces to get you started on the site already.

As someone that is going though the same thing right now I would recommend blogging about your progress.

Matthew Bingham
Matthew Bingham
11,927 Points

Thanks RJ, I am really keen to develop a web application I have in mind. I've gone to a few suppliers but am not willing to pay the rates, so decided to learn how to do this myself and then go ahead and try to create something beautiful!

I do realise that there are a number of different paths that can be taken in order to achieve a desired goal (web app) and perhaps I may be able to help others in the future by blogging about my progress (nice suggestion).

Good luck with your own project!

They have a Sass Basics deep dive lined up for November 25th, hopefully that'll give you some of what you're looking for.

Matthew Bingham
Matthew Bingham
11,927 Points

That's great news Andrew, hopefully I will have improved my skills enough by that time to participate. Thanks for the update.

RJ McCollam
RJ McCollam
16,823 Points

That deep dive is actually for the CSS preprocessor Sass and not starting a SaaS business.

Definitely excited about it though, thanks for bringing it up Andrew Walker.

SaaS, Sass; I contiue to confuse the plethora of acronyms (seems there's more to know everyday), my apologies.