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General Discussion

Posted by Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

Web Development

I want to create a site prety much like elance. Can you suggest me what courses to take to try and code that thing or at least a demo of that. Would you recomend php or ruby on rails or anything else. I am kinda of new to programming. Thank you in advance

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

So exept the front end. With ROR I can create the site that I want I dont need ruby?

5 Answers

Ferdinand Pretorius
Ferdinand Pretorius
18,705 Points
Ferdinand Pretorius
Ferdinand Pretorius
18,705 Points

Hi Arnold,

I would recommend using Ruby on Rails(RoR) for the project, you should be able to hack together your project in far less time, however RoR has a very steep learning curve to get a full understanding of how the framework works. Good news is that ruby is not going anywhere any time soon and there is a high demand for ruby developers, specially among start-ups.

I haven't worked my way through any of Treehouse's ruby content, but I know Jason Seifer is a great developer and have no doubt that he would have structured a good course for you to work through.

Hope this helps and Good Luck!

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

Thank you Ferdinand. Do you suggest any good books for ruby on rails to go from basic to be able to create this kind of webiste?

Ferdinand Pretorius
Ferdinand Pretorius
18,705 Points
Ferdinand Pretorius
Ferdinand Pretorius
18,705 Points

First off, I do also recommend you work your way through the front-end track on Treehouse. Only AFTER you have finished the track should you consider rails. I know you are probably very excited to build your app and this will be time consuming, but it will give you fundamental knowledge. This will arguably save you time in the long run as you will save hours and hours on referencing.

As for the content to learn rails, try the Treehouse rails track, like I said I didn't work my way through this myself, but have a lot of faith that Jason would've created a good track. I don't want to promote any other sites on this forum, but codeschool has a really good RoR 'path' ( google is your friend ).

Some books that I would highly recommend, though might be pricey....

Rails 4 in action - https://www.manning.com/books/rails-4-in-action The Well-Grounded Rubyist - https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-rubyist ( You might struggle to find a hard copy of this nowadays, might be worth googling around )

The latter is only if you want to dive into core ruby a bit more. It is important to note that you don't need to learn ruby before diving into ruby on rails.

If there is anything else you need help with, please don't hesitate to ask!

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

So exept the front end. With ROR I can create the site that I want I dont need ruby? Is this course about the front end enoght to learn it?

Ferdinand Pretorius
Ferdinand Pretorius
18,705 Points
Ferdinand Pretorius
Ferdinand Pretorius
18,705 Points

Yes, the app you want to build will be done the quickest in RoR. The front end track is a good starting point but you have to practise a lot, otherwise you will still end up referencing more than you want to, trust me on this one. Don't rush your learning experience. Come to terms that it is probably going to take you around 6 months to study all the content you need to know to build the app. This can obviously change depending on how much you study and how quickly you grasp the concepts.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey!

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

Of course that's how much I need to even finish the business plan etc. Thanks a lot man i appreciate this :)

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

One more thing if I wanted to do it as a mobile app. Would it be easier if I first did it as a website? Then as a mobile app?

Sergey Podgornyy
Sergey Podgornyy
20,660 Points
Sergey Podgornyy
Sergey Podgornyy
20,660 Points

Hey Arnold!

First of all, you need to decide what is more intresting for you, Front-End (what display in browser) or Back-End (everything that is executing on the server side). I want to recomment with Front-End Development course first - Front End Web Development Track I have finished PHP course here, on tree house, and I don't recomment it.

Best regards, Sergey

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points
Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

Please watch out for your links when you paste them like that because at the end it lives :



And it give you a 404 error.

The best way it to make it a link with :

[This is a link](www.link.com)

If your not sure, press edit and look how I done it.

I just want to make sure they work, because many time , a lot of people, never can open links, so I just want to share it. You can also delete it at the end and it will still work by deleting the &#..

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points
Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

Client side langauge Client side scripting reffers to the creation of web application that execute themselves in the browser of user computer. Its like storing the data in cookies or in the browser such as JavaScript for a better uficiency and more. The languages , the most fundamental blocks of the website, are HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build the layout and the feeling of the webiste.

Here are some examples : • HTML

• CSS

• JavaScript

• jQuery

• Flash ( not recommended )

• Microsoft Silverlight ( if your on windows, I think )

Server-side language Server-side scripting is the backend of the website that give us the ability to store text, images videos and more in the web. You will have the ability to do things quicker, do more powerfull things and achieve result that no other language could do it. Each language should be used in appropriate place. If we look at YouTube where it’s a webapp that allow us to watch videos, the best, or at least what they are using, is Python. Facebook is using PHP which is perfect for a social webapp , but in these days, we could do it in Ruby on Rails, which will be faster and better. PHP is pretty old and its running out of era. Java is good when we add it to the backend in the right place to make the ufficiency the best

Here are some languages that are used for the server-side language:

• PHP

• Ruby

• Python

• Java

• ASP.NET

• C

If you want to start in web development industry , you will need to learn HTML and CSS, After you are comfortable with it, you can learn either JavaScript or a server side language, a good one to start is PHP and dive into WordPress, that my opinion.

I agree with all the above as well.

I just wrote it on my Microsfot World, so ill paset, it maybe it helps. I can go in deep even more in around 12hours.

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points
Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

Keep it simple. First, learn the front-end like html,css and jquery. then start on ruby on rails. You don't really need to learn ruby to use rails. You need to understand the concept around it all. Learn the courses on treehouse and supplement then with https://www.railstutorial.org/book by Micheal Hartl. It goes through all the possible things you would do with rails. Also, teaches the simple concept of MVC and the ruby used in rails. You should be able to build an app after that. Then as time goes on you can improve this app with rspec .

ldeally you can look to get it all done anything from 3 months to 6 months depending on how quick you learn.

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

Hello Konrad, Thanks for your answer. So you think I can learn HTML,CSS,JQUERY and the go with RUBY ON RAILS? So before I get involved with ROR I need to learn the other languages or I can do that in the meantime? What kind of level should I get from html,css and jquery and what do you suggeest to learn for ruby on rails to go from beginer to that project?

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points
Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

Yeah, definitely because you need to make your app look good and not just work well. People love apps that look good and work well. So get the foundation of HTML and CSS and jQuery. You don't need to master it at all. With the basics you can do what is called product oriented programming. learning what you need when you need it. So l would say do jQuery foundation, CSS foundation and HTML foundation on here treehouse. That would get you started.

You can grab a template from Wrapboostrap or themeforest, tweak it with your CSS,HTML and jQuery knowledge.

With rails again do the ruby foundation to get the idea of rails and then start on the Micheal hartl book which you can read for free online. You can then go on and do the treehouse course rails (some are outdated but they are currently updateing them). You can again supplement these with other https://code4startup.com and https://mackenziechild.me/ free courses on rails. By the end you do this which would take you like a month. You should be more than ready to start building simple apps on rails. Again to confirm you need the foundation of rails to start because you will use gems a lot and which is a bit like using plugins, you need to know how to use them and be able to read and understand documentation.

We are here to help so if you happen to be stuck, post a question and we would help you.

Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points
Arnold Zhulali
Arnold Zhulali
3,526 Points

Thanks a lot Kondrad, very helpfull information.