New Technical Toys
I’ve always loved learning new things about computers. About 90% of what I know about computers is self-taught because of my passion for learning new things. Over the years I’ve taught myself BASIC, Pascal, HTML, JavaScript, Perl, SQL, C, C++, PHP, Java, shell scripting, Windows, Linux, networking, MySQL, PostgresSQL, Apache, qmail, Sendmail, djbdns, BIND, and a few other things that I’m probably not remembering to list.
A month or so ago, I read a few articles about Python. It looked interesting enough to dedicate some time to it. Python is an object-oriented, cross-platform scripting language that has really grown in recent years. I thought about maybe writing a BBS (bulliten board system) that people could run on their home machines, and allow people to log in over the Internet. BBSs historically have used modems to allow their users to connect, talk, download files, play games, and do other things online. This, of course, was before the Internet exploded in the mid 90′s. Once people discovered the unfettered access of the Internet, BBSs tended to fall to the wayside. I wondered if I could write a project that would bring BBSs back to the forefront. I dove into Python, and I used a handful of websites as tutorials, references, and guides. There were some good ones, and some bad ones, but most were average. Many of them attempted to teach me how to program, but I didn’t need that. I already know how to program. I just needed syntax, built-in functions, functionality, and other goodies like that. After playing with Python for a week or so, I decided that I really didn’t like it. It’s array functionality is odd, and I found that it really didn’t run any faster, better, or smoother than Perl or PHP. I quickly dropped the language, and decided that I would probably not go back to it. It’s just another tool — and a good tool — but it didn’t give me any capabilities beyond the languages that I already know.
Last night I read last month’s Linux Journal, and it was an issue dedicated to Ruby. Ruby has been around since 1995, but it didn’t gain in popularity until last year. The articles were in-depth, well written, and explained the basic concepts of the language. It’s described as a cross between Perl and Smalltalk. Basically, it’s another object-oriented scripting language with some neat features. One of the articles was an interview in which the person claimed to have written a full-blown e-commerce suite in just 2000 lines of code.I’ve done the same in PHP, but my line count came out to a little under 1800. Their accomplishment was impressive, but it didn’t persuade me to think that Ruby was any better than PHP when it came to doing web development. I’ll probably not even spend any time learning Ruby. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a nice language, but it doesn’t add anything to my skillset by knowing beyond being able to claim that I know it on my resume.
There is yet another new piece of technology that has recently come to the attention of geeks like myself: Ajax. Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. It’s basically a way for JavaScript to snag parts of a web site and, in real time, update the page that you’re currently looking at without requiring a page reload or refresh. It’s very nice. I’ve worked with DHTML in the past where JavaScript is used to update the page that you’re looking at without requiring a server hit. This usually results in very quick page refreshes, and impressive movement on the page. I’ve done some pretty heavy DHTML in the past, but it’s always a pain because of the different implementations of JavaScript in the various browsers out there. Things have gotten better over the years (but I suspect that the release of IE 7 will totally fuck things up again) so the coding of DHTML has gotten easier.
This month’s Linux Journal had a short article on Ajax, and I really enjoyed it. It only covered the very basics of Ajax, but it was enough of a taste to make me want more. I’m going to do some searches for books on Ajax, and I’ll probably pick up a couple of them. It’s something that I can use here at work, and it looks really fun to do. Most webmasters that I know hate JavaScript, but I’ve always enjoyed using it. I think learning Ajax would be a great thing. If it’s good enough to play with (Hell, it’s good enough for Google Maps) then I may just redesign my personal web site using Ajax just to say that I did it.
