.PHP, .ASP, .XML, PERL, CGI, javascript ... Where do I start and is it necessary to know them all?

Question

I already know HTML. I know flash and understand actionscript, but could not make anything fancy without any tutorials at the moment. I have used XML in my flash slideshow I made once. there are all these other languages, as far as I know, CGI and ASP and PERL do basically the same thing.. so which should I learn.. do i need to know them all... what is PHP? aghh... I need help =( I also want to learn C++. Object oriented whatever that means ( i know u can make games in it). Is flash object oriented too? AGHHH
my school doesnt even teach any programming. Blah. where can I learn it without wastin all my cash. im poor. GAH.

Answer 1

"CGI and ASP and PERL do basically the same thing."

Not quite. CGI is a standard of sorts, that allows programs to be run by webservers. You can have CGI used by any programming language that supports it: Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, even C++ if you do some exotic programming.



ASP (I'll talk about ASP.NET actually) is really a platform for writing dynamic websites/web applications. Complex websites have their HTML autogenerated, and you can use ASP (typically by using a .NET language like C# or VB.NET) for a programming language.



Perl is a general purpose language. It's extremely useful for text manipulations, but because it is basically a very powerful and vast language. That makes it suitable for everything from basic scripts to whole web applications. You typically use Perl for web applications as a CGI script or with mod_perl (for Apache webservers). Perl is comparable to C# in that they are programming languages.



"what is PHP?"

Another server side programming language. Unlike C#, or Perl, it is not intended to be used outside of web programming. It's very popular especially because it is both free and has a very low barrier of entry.



"do i need to know them all"

No. You need *a* server side language to write web applications. Note my use of the singular in language. You may use more than one in very powerful/commercial programs, but to start with you can rely on just one.



"so which should I learn."

Take a good stock of web programming languages. You get PHP, Java, ASP.NET (C#, VB.NET), Perl, Python, and Ruby. I recommend Python or Ruby because they are high level languages, are general purpose languages, are mainstream, and have a low barrier to entry. PHP comes next as my recommendation, or perhaps C#/ASP.NET.



"I also want to learn C++"

C++ is a general purpose programming language. It's more suitable for lower level/systems programming tasks. It's very powerful, and it can be used to write everything from operating systems to a webserver or modules for a webserver. It's used to write quite a bit of programs used on your computers. It's a compact language, but very difficult to master.



"Object oriented whatever that means ( i know u can make games in it)"

Object oriented just reflects a programming paradigm. It's no magic bullet or one size fits all solution.



"Is flash object oriented too?"

I don't recall, but I think it is to some extent. Do you have the notion of classes and objects (I think you do)? Then you have the ideas of object oriented programming.



"Blah. where can I learn it without wastin all my cash"

Google. Please.



If you're going for C++, get a book from ACCU's review list (http://accu.org/index.php/book_reviews?url=search.xqy?field=subject&term=beginner's+c%2b%2b ). I recommend C++ Primer by Stanley Lippman or Accelerated C++ by Koenig.



If you're going for Python: http://python.org/ . Really spend some time there, as they have quite a bit of documentation and resources.



PHP: http://php.net/



Google for the other programming languages...

Answer 2

I've got good news for you: you won't need ANY money to learn! The net has so many tutorials and free resources these days that you should get by fine without spending any cash.



You don't need to learn all of the languages you mentioned- although I guess it depends on what you want out of it. In my opinion it's better to know a lot about one language than a little about many, to start with at least. Then once you know a language like the back of your hand it's generally pretty easy and quicker to learn others.



I'm not really an expert but from what I gather the best technologies to get into right now are Java and .NET (money-wise at least), but if you're just starting out then I recommend having a go with PHP (can still be pretty well paid)- it's pretty simple to use and very powerful, and there are thousands of tutorials and free scripts on the net because it's become so popular.



You won't even need a website to test your scripts if you set up your computer with the right software. If you go for PHP, a good package to use is WAMP (www.wampserver.com). This will install all the things you'll need to run PHP scripts locally on your PC. There's also a version for the Mac call MAMP.



(that reminds me, you really should look into learning a database language too- mysql is very good and free, and is also included with WAMP and MAMP)



As far as Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) goes, it's just a method of coding that is seen as very efficient to maintain. PHP5 is fully OOP capable so you'd do good to learn this way of programming, especially if you intend to move over to Java which requires it.



I hope that's of some help to you.

Answer 3

HTML(which you know) and XML is a must, then I would recommend learning either or of ASP or PHP, My preference being PHP. JS would defiantly be a nice plus, but its not as needed as the rest for web dev.



C++ is not flash based, and a great codding language to learn. Some people prefer Visual Basic .NET, but I would go with C++ Myself.



A great place to learn all kinds of different computer languages is at http://w3schools.com



Edit: -Oh, I would also learn how to create and use CSS stylesheets if you don't already know.

Answer 4

http://www.w3schools.com



Here is a good place to start. I tend to download open source web applications such as PHP-Nuke, osCommerce, or any scripted application. Try backwards engineering the programs. Be aware that there is a lot of trial and error. You will love your undo button when attempting to "teach" yourself any scripting language.



PHP-Nuke - http://www.phpnuke.org

osCommerce - http://www.oscommerce.com



HotScripts - http://www.hotscripts.com

Answer 5

youtube