[Off Topic] Any "web applicaiton developers" out there?

[Unknown W. Brackets]

Hello.

I do enjoy the development.  Because it's different, and if you do it 
right it can really work well.  There's a lot to it, but there are also 
fewer barriers to entry.... you can start small, and as you learn more, 
do amazing things.

It can be challenging at times.  One thing many people (unfortunately) 
don't look toward is the huge amount of concurrent users websites can 
get.  I work on many entertainment industry related sites, so I see 
these a lot - and you definitely still have to have a head for optimization.

Also; you still get the same old challenges.  For example, one client 
wanted pdfs generated from the website, based on a design (so it could 
be printed by the suppliers and shipped.)  This was very interesting, 
and somewhat challenging.

The above said, sometimes it isn't as challenging as I'd like.  In those 
times, you have to challenge yourself - to do it better.  The reality 
is, you can almost always do it better (for example, most dynamic pages 
don't send caching headers and cache well, even if they perfectly well 
could.)

I spend a lot of my time doing all of those.  XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript 
can take some time, but is really not what I spend most of my time 
doing.  However, when I have to deal with bugs in browsers, sometimes it 
can take quite a bit of time (this can also be challenging, by the way.)

Most of my time is probably spent programming in PHP, or in another web 
language.  However, when I say that, I think of profiling database 
queries and etc. more on that side.

Directly messing with the database I don't do a lot, though I had to 
spend time when I was learning to get a good feel for how to use joins, 
indexes, and the like properly.

After that, it's more a matter of making sure your query is picking up 
the right things (which is much more tightly bound to the PHP/etc. 
programming imho.)

I do see a strong future in web development, although I think in ways 
it's not moving like I'd like.  The company I work for does many sites 
that are Flash and PHP driven (again, the entertainment industry, they 
like Flash), and it definitely doesn't look to be going away.

Things are also changing, and people are getting more interest in 
different things.  I remember, I actually messed with XMLHttpRequest 
before it became popular ("Web 2.0", I hate that term)... I thought it 
wasn't terribly useful.  Haha, seems I wasn't in the majority.

There are other things on the horizon too.  Big changes in JavaScript, 
DOM, HTML, that will make things easier and cleaner.  With that comes 
the backwards compatibility... things will be interesting for a while 
longer at least ;).

I do a lot of systems type stuff as well.  For example, I help manage 
our servers from time to time (because I have some experience doing 
that.)  I've written utilities for this in D.

Further, sometimes you don't want/need a language like C# or PHP, but 
one that is fast for processing.  Case in point: I did a little mixer 
program, where you picked two mp3s and dynamically mixed them (using a 
slider bar) together.  I wrote a simple D program that mixed the two 
together and gave the user something to download.

Had I done this in PHP, C#, or similar, it would not have been fast 
enough for the impatient users that proliferate the web.

It's also possible that one might right a FastCGI program in D, which 
would likely be a good mix.  It might also be possible to write an 
Apache module, although this seems like it would be more trouble indeed.

Lastly, as to your comment about "hard core programmer ... challenging 
problems", that really depends on you, not on what you do.  I work with 
PHP and MySQL primarily, which really have a bad name in that regard.

But, if you know what you're doing, you know what you're doing.  It 
means something if you can write a dynamic website that sends reasonable 
caching headers and performs well, because when the site gets 
1,000/5,000/10,000 (whatever milestone you have for it) users online at 
once the first time, and the server's load average didn't even notice, 
you'll be proud.

People still consider me to be a programmer challenging difficult 
problems, at least at the office.  Or so I'd like to think.  I've had 
the project managers joke they were fighting for me, and often have 
other programmers in the office coming to me for advice on things 
they're working on.

This is just how an office is; and the other programmers in my office 
are taking on challenging things as well.  But if you're worried about 
losing respect or face, you won't really.  You'll only look like less a 
programmer to those people who don't know the difference between good 
PHP and bad... and for those, who cares anyway?

Or, if you mean, losing the edge within yourself (not respect or face), 
I doubt that's an issue.  Just keep in mind, if you slog off, you slog 
off.  It's easy to lose your edge when you switch to something new, 
especially something that has an easy learning curve.  This is true with 
anything, I think.

My opinion.  Hope it helps, at least somewhat.  I should note, last I 
was told, systems programming pays more.... but I think web programming 
is more interesting (and, of course, how much it pays depends on you, 
again.)

-[Unknown]


> Hi,
> 
> This is extremely off topic, but this newsgroup is the one that I'm the 
> most familiar with, and all regular posters seem to be friendly and have 
> insights I respect, so I thought I would post it here.
> 
> I have an opportunity to change the type of software development I do 
> from developing desktop (some client/server) engineering/scientific 
> applications to developing web applications (J2EE, JSP, HTML, PHP, 
> Databases, etc). I'm doing some research to help determine if web 
> application development is for me.
> 
> If you are or were a web application developer, or have an interest in it:
> 
> - Do you enjoy that type development and why?
> 
> - Do you find web application development technically challenging? What 
> type of challenges do you face?
> 
> - What do you spend most of your time doing? HTML/CSS, programming 
> (Java, C#, PHP), SQL, managing databases, etc.?
> 
> - Do you see a strong future in web application development?
> 
> - Why are you attracted to D if you are web application developer?
> 
> If you are more like me (desktop applications, systems programming):
> 
> - Would you ever consider doing web application development? Why or why 
> not?
> 
> One of my biggest fears is that I would lose my edge as a "hard core 
> programmer solving technically challenging problems". Is this a 
> legitimate fear?
> 
> Any other comments are welcome. If you have some resources you like to 
> share to help make my decision, please do so.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Jason