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General Discussion

Posted by Charlie Bailey
Charlie Bailey
336 Points

What languages to begin learning for a community based dashboard/ app?

Alright, I'm new and a relatively blank slate. I've always wanted to make apps and have different tech ideas and glad that I've made the steps to get the ball rolling.

In the past I've worked a little bit with HTML, JAVA, and have begun learning Swift. I work a lot with excel formula's and have a little bit of experience with VBA and SQL as a bit of background.

Basically, I'd like to create a website that allows people in the area to post about things they're selling - ideally on a dashboard where they can upload an image and then put a bit of writing over this. Other items will come up from other sellers dependent on the users preferences (i.e they say they're interested in socks, blankets etc and options show up based on where they are).

I guess it's kinda like a job searching site but a bit more interesting as it will be predominantly based on images rather than too much writing and preferences will be saved for future and then changed whenever the user wants. It has both a proactive and reactive selling side to it. I'm sure there are similar websites out there but don't have an exact example right now.

From my novice knowledge, I'm guessing that building this into an app can be done eventually by using an API from the website and then using swift for iOS. I understand that this will probably take me FOREVER to do but knowing where to start would help the whole process! So my questions are:

  • What would be the best language to learn to create this website? Would it be Ruby on Rails? (It would need a sign up page, the ability to save and change preferences and geographic location, the ability to upload an image and then write over the image etc.)
  • Are there some particular courses on treehouse that you'd recommend for this?
  • Is there some existing code out there that will help kickstart some aspects of this?
  • Is this completely impossible for someone of my standard?

Really appreciate any responses but also appreciate the fact that maybe some of this could be a bit too advanced for someone new but I'd like a project to work towards and want to know how to work towards it.

Thanks.

1 Answer

Marcus Parsons
Marcus Parsons
15,719 Points
Marcus Parsons
Marcus Parsons
15,719 Points

Hey Charlie,

You can totally do this project. It is probably going to take a while if you do it by yourself, but it is more than feasible. What I would recommend is a strong understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, a back-end language such as Ruby/PHP/Python/etc., and a database querying language such as MySQL. I've personally found PHP to be very compatible with the things I've learned from JavaScript as far as syntax for writing PHP goes.

The best thing you can do for your project is to just start it. Start out with some basic HTML and then just work your way up. Don't get intimidated by the scope of your project. Work as much as you can on what you can. I created everything I've done from the foundation up, just like any developer, builder, architect, etc. would do! Your foundation begins with HTML. You can check out some of my projects here: http://www.marcusparsons.com/projects/index.html.

Check out the front-end track here on Treehouse and get on that right away. Front-end technologies are going to handle most of the heavy lifting on your page. You don't want your server bearing the brunt of the work, so front-end technologies (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) are a big deal. And try to experiment while you're doing the track. Pause the video and jot down notes.

Definitely experiment with code while you're at it! I don't know about you, but someone can talk to me until they are blue in the face about some new concepts, it doesn't mean I'll instantly get it. I'm a do-er, and I have to get into the mix and do it and play around with it before I can truly understand what I'm doing.

Again, I'll mention that you want your front-end technologies handling most of the work. The reason why I say this is that front-end technologies use the user's computer to do the work instead of your server like back-end technologies. This is a very good thing, because if your server had to process every single operation of 1,000,000 users different operations, you'd probably need an array of supercomputers just to do it! lol

With that in mind, let your HTML be the original foundation of the page; let your CSS control the styling of the page; let your JavaScript control the interactivity with the user; and finally, let your back-end technologies only handle what is necessary.