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So, I decided to try to go back to web development, and I am sincerely regretting it.
The last time I did anything with HTML/PHP/JS, was around '04-'06, when I was in high school. Back then, it was fairly simple. You wrote your logic code and database access in PHP, you displayed it through HTML, and maybe did some DOM hacking with JS. The old AJAX was just starting to come about when I last created anything for the web.
After awhile, I got bored with web development and pushed more into desktop programming, and went to C# and loved it. Still do. I plan on getting my certification within a year or two. But I digress...
Fast forward to... about now. I still enjoy plugging away at C#, but due to the linux-centric web world, I feel like being stuck to Microsoft is holding me back. That, and I just can NOT get my head around ASP.NET MVC.
So I started looking into some of these newer (to me) technologies, such as Node.JS, and client-side stuff like Angular. Node.JS intrigues me. Seems like a very useful and powerful backend to a RESTful application. But I'm not a fan of using it for actually rendering a website. So I jumped back over to the old LAMP setup, and found Angular...
What. The. Hell? I hated JS before, but now? I want to burn it with fire, and throw the remains into an active volcano, and drop a nuke on said volcano.
Having been stuck in the relatively type-strict C#, JS just looks like an absolute mess. How do you know if something is a variable? A function?  (Not actually asking these questions, more just throwing my hands in the air in frustration).
The idea of putting anything security related (e.g. cookies, login verification) or logic related into the client side is just appalling to me. The fact that a hacker can easily view the source code of your javascript, and people are putting potentially volatile information there, just makes my skin crawl.
I've been attempting over the last week or so to make a single page web application using Angular, and I just feel like I'm stupid. I read all this source code, the API's, examples... and very little of it actually makes any sense. It might just be my lack of knowledge of javascript syntax, but everything just feels so... hacky, I guess the word would be.
I'm very much a 'why' type of programmer. I don't care that something works, I want to know WHY it works, and how. I don't like blindly relying on an API to just work.
I feel like I either have to give in to this 'new' way of thinking, or cross my arms, give out a solid "Herrumpf" and go back to my old ways.
Anyways, there's not much of a point to this. Just a rant. If anyone has any advice, or are having (or had) a similar experience, I'd like to hear it.
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I'd give typescript a try, not sure how production ready it is as I have never used it myself (I don't do web).
Wout
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Johnny J. wrote: At least, they did that with Silverlight as well.
You are not alone, I was going to rub some angst into that particular weeping sore!
If VS was not such an excellent tool and 100% of my income is from the MS stack I would love to tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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The thing you have to remember about angular, node etc is that they're mainly fad frameworks that will be replaced tomorrow, and then replaced the day after that and so on. You can concentrate on the server-side aspect using more stable platforms like asp.net and once you have something working you can add some nice features or user improvements via client-side frameworks.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: they're mainly fad frameworks that will be replaced tomorrow, and then replaced the day after that and so on.
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Well - for a start - you could get rid of the various frameworks and add-ons that are in style (for the present) and use real javaScript and php.
Once you get loose to not having strong typing, sensible in world that really sees everything as text, you can have fun with the whole lot.
You just need to learn to do what you need to do (duh!).
Cookies are not for security. There's all sorts of methods to impose security (hence we have a growing fad which is called e-commerce). You only need to do it.
Is C++ better*, more secure, faster? Yes. Do you have access to client and server side from a single application - that actually natively has a state? Yup.
Embrace the Dark Side!
* I've not dropped down to C# or VB.Net, either, for that matter.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Vouksh wrote: I don't like blindly relying on an API to just work.
Then I think you are missing the entire point of APIs, IMHO.
Advice? -- Keep plugging away at it; if you are a true developer/programmer/engineer, your passion for the craft will take you to great places and you will get more proficient and feel less "stupid", as you put it. If you are not, then you will fail miserably and be depressed, and look for work elsewhere.
Good luck!!
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I plan on keeping at it. Programming is just a hobby for me, fortunately, so I have plenty of time to slam my head against it till I've learned it. I don't actually plan on making a career of programming. I don't think I could sit in a cubicle all day, I prefer being physically active when I work.
But plugging away at code keeps my brain just as active as my body, even if it does cause me a fair amount of frustration.
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Vouksh wrote: I just can NOT get my head around ASP.NET MVC
Then you are going to have problems with Angular, since it's a client side MVC framework that works very similarly to ASP.NET MVC.
Try Knockout. No-nonsense databinding in javascript without all the MVC noise.
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So I took a look at Knockout, and I can actually read their examples! From the bit that I've seen, I should be able to work with it. Thank you!
I have to rewrite all the the javascript I have so far, but maybe this time I'll understand what I'm writing 
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Vouksh wrote: everything just feels so... hacky
Yup.
Try something simpler, like Knockout (as suggested) or even Backbone. Both have source which is fairly easy to wrap one's head around.
Like you, I come from the happy world of C# (and before that, C++ and Pascal), and it's been quite painful to discover how pathetic HTML is, how pathetic most third party HTML controls are, and how bizarre the hacks are in Javascript to supposedly make web development easier for the programmer.
When I work with other people's code, the DRY principle seems to be thrown out the window and good architecture doesn't exist except possibly what's foisted upon you by the Backbone/Angular/et al "framework", meaning the framework's implementation of a client-side MVC pattern. And debugging Javascript in a browser window can be a frustrating experience, yet I'm actually grateful that debugging is possible, I cringe whenever I put in an "alert" or console.log statement to either check on a variable or test whether the code is even being executed!
It's a mess, and the only way that I've figured out how to deal with it is to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Marc
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Is writing good software hard?
(This should've been posted last Friday, so you will see another in four days.)
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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There are two ways to do anything:- do it right, or do it again.
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That implies the intention to get it right eventually, something which I'm not convinced every software producer has 
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Nope, it's usually do it now as best you can and never get time to make it right
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"software hard" is an oxymoron.
«There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you don’t want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.» Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008
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But Soft Hardware[^] isn't! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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There are too many intrinsic assumptions in that question. What is good software? Without a baseline, complete definition this is an impossible question to answer properly.
This space for rent
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You are right, what is good? The whole question is loaded by the viewpoint. The coder sees good as bug free, the team leader wants it understandable and easy to maintain, operations want a solution they can support, the users needs it to deliver functionality and the bosses want to maximise ROI.
Pick any viewpoint and 'good software' is a very different beast.
veni bibi saltavi
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I was told that the British are superior at creating and recognizing wordplay. Have I been misled?
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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We also like being contrary. Guess which role I have been filling today.
This space for rent
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Good software provides/implements the easiest possible solution.
Paradoxically, the easiest solution is the hardest to come up with... 
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Sander Rossel wrote: Good software provides/implements the easiest possible solution.
But what if the easiest possible solution is also far too slow? Is it still good?
This space for rent
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If it's far too slow it's not a(n acceptable) solution 
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