Email conversation
| From | Simon G Gibson |
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| To | Me |
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| Subject | Request for general advice about Java / VB Script building |
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| Date | 10 November 2008 15:33 |
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Tarquin,
By chance I was lucky enough to come across your site, and have spent quite
a bit of time reading your excellent tutorials. I am probably not the normal
'advanced' correspondent you are used to receiving emails from, but would
very much value your advice on the best way forward to improve my web
creation skills. I will try to be brief..
I have created a number of successful sites using proprietary web creation
software, (almost exclusively without needing to fully understand HTML or
Java so far) and would now very much like to move into more the 'advanced'
territory of Java, HTML, etc, specifically to be able to create more
advanced E commerce solutions.
I am not short of some programming experience, albeit with somewhat obsolete
languages.. In the early 80's I became reasonably proficient with Z80
machine code and assembler for the very early Z80 processor based 'home'
computers. Having obtained a teach yourself Java publication, I believe I
could get my head around Object oriented programming with a little work,
although I must admit to being quite surprised at how crude this language
appears to be. Having lost touch with programming over the last 20 years or
so, I somehow expected the syntax and coding to be somewhat more user
friendly than it appears to be. However my two questions are basically .
1. Is Visual Basic a more user friendly language to learn than Java; (I also
have previous extensive experience with ZX Basic), and. can it always be
used as an equivalent substitute to achieve similar results to Java in all
cases.
2. Also can you possibly advise me where I can find clear, understandable,
practical information on how to use either Java or VB scripts in interactive
applications, with say the [online banking interaction] system for
example, (which I came across in a recent basic Ecommerce site build, and
which I eventually found a way around because of the lead time required, in
learning the advanced skills required to use it).
Whilst I am not in a position to undertake full-time education, I am equally
trying to avoid expensive distance learning courses, many of which have
received such bad press as out of date and unfit for purposed just recently.
I am confident that, given a practical and understandable source of
information with, say specific examples of applications integration
methodology and coding, I ought to be able to pick this up with a little
hard work!
As an obviously very experienced script and applications builder yourself, I
would very much value your advice.
Kind regards,
Simon G Gibson.
| From | Me |
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| To | Simon G Gibson |
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| Subject | Re: Request for general advice about Java / VB Script building |
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| Date | 15 November 2008 14:13 |
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Simon,
> almost exclusively without needing to fully understand HTML or
> Java so far
I think you might mean JavaScript, not Java - totally unrelated programming
languages. Java is almost never used on the client side of the Web, and
exists only as a small number of applets. On the server side it exists as a
horrendous language called JSP. Don't go there.
JavaScript is the programming language of the client-side Web.
> specifically to be able to create more advanced E commerce solutions.
While you will need to learn HTML (my tutorials should give you a start),
you do not need to learn any client side programming languages at all for
this. All the logic of a shopping site should be done on the server - that's
the only way to ensure users do not bypass your client side logic. You can
do simple form validation on the client, but it's the server side where you
should enforce the rules.
> Having obtained a teach yourself Java
Unless you plan on writing your sites in JSP, stop trying to learn Java. It
will only confuse matters. You can try learning JavaScript, however - just
don't make your site use that for any of its important logic. It's partly
procedural, and partly object oriented, but the object oriented stuff is far
simpler than in languages like Java.
> 1. Is Visual Basic a more user friendly language to learn than Java
They are completely different in style, and it depends what works for you.
On the client side (in a browser), VBScript is an utterly useless language,
and should never be used, because it only works in some installs of only one
browser. JavaScript is the only programming language that should be used on
the client side.
On the server side, I advise you to stay away from JSP. You can use
VBScript's server-side equivalent called ASP (which uses a very high level
syntax that feels like spoken words), or you could try the obfuscator's
dream of Perl, or the much more easy to master PHP.
Personally, I say go for PHP, and learn MySQL to go with it. PHP,
JavaScript, Perl and the C family use a similar syntax for basic control
structures, which is more like normal programming languages, and less like
spoken words. PHP, however, is a very easy language to learn, and is
procedural by default, not object oriented (though it can be), so it should
be a concept that you are more familiar with.
> 2. Also can you possibly advise me where I can find clear, understandable,
> practical information on how to use either Java or VB scripts in
> interactive applications
No idea, and I wouldn't recommend you use either of them.
The PHP site contains plenty of information about how to handle sensitive
information, and keep your site robust. That's the best place to start.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/
There should also be a good few hits if you search the Web for how to use
PHP with popular banking sites.
Mark 'Tarquin' Wilton-Jones - author of http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/
| From | Simon G Gibson |
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| To | Me |
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| Subject | Re: Request for general advice about Java / VB Script building |
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| Date | 27 November 2008 16:07 |
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Tarquin,
Many, many, thanks for taking the time to reply, I intend to follow your
advice and set about PHP !
Thanks again,
Simon.