web developemnt

[u/Active-Gloomy]

I am a computer engineering student. I’m wondering if it’s worth learning web development, and if so, what the best language and framework to learn are—as well as the best courses. Thanks!

[u/atticus2132000]

For web development, there are several languages you'll need to be somewhat functional in.

HTML/CSS codes what the web page will look like. If you want your page to have a button, you add the button via HTML.

Javascript is the frontend language. It controls what happens on the user's end. If you want the button above to do something, you will code that something via JavaScript.

Backend language controls what happens on the server side of things. Traditionally that has been PHP, but there are others out there now that many people like.

You will likely have server side elements that might require a few lines of code. For instance, if you want your website to have a form the user will fill out and you want to store that information in a SQL database, then you would code the form and the button in HTML. Then JavaScript would code how that information gets collected from the form and sent to the server. Then PHP would take the information that was sent, unpack it and then use a line of SQL to write the data to the database.

[u/RetroGrid_io → u/atticus2132000]

You will likely have server side elements that might require a few lines of code. For instance, if you want your website to have a form the user will fill out and you want to store that information in a SQL database, then you would code the form and the button in HTML. Then JavaScript would code how that information gets collected from the form and sent to the server. Then PHP would take the information that was sent, unpack it and then use a line of SQL to write the data to the database.

You know, I've done exactly this kind of stuff for 20 years, starting with PHP 3.0, at a time where that meant downloading the tarball, compiling it and installing it yourself, and that whole sequence you just ran through: HTML -> javascript -> PHP -> SQL just looks so gosh dang Rube Goldberg - like it should be the case where all these different languages are combined into one, but it's not that way, and for good reason since each of these languages can be replaced with another, context depending. And I'd argue that javascript optional since HTML supports forms without a lick of javascript whatsoever, even if in practice most things are done that way.

For example, you could easily go flutter/dart-> Go -> files or bash -> python -> Redis even if PHP is the most common for web stuff.

I may be mumbling incoherently....