A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet

NYT ^ | 3/28/12 | JENNA WORTHAM

[Borges]

Parlez-vous Python? What about Rails or JavaScript? Foreign languages tend to wax and wane in popularity, but the language du jour is computer code.

The market for night classes and online instruction in programming and Web construction, as well as for iPhone apps that teach, is booming. Those jumping on board say they are preparing for a future in which the Internet is the foundation for entertainment, education and nearly everything else. Knowing how the digital pieces fit together, they say, will be crucial to ensuring that they are not left in the dark ages.

Some in this crowd foster secret hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg. But most have no plans to quit their day jobs — it is just that those jobs now require being able to customize a blog’s design or care for and feed an online database.

“Inasmuch as you need to know how to read English, you need to have some understanding of the code that builds the Web,” said Sarah Henry, 39, an investment manager who lives in Wayne, Pa. “It is fundamental to the way the world is organized and the way people think about things these days.” Ms. Henry took several classes, including some in HTML, the basic language of the Web, and WordPress, a blogging service, through Girl Develop It, an organization based in New York that she had heard about online that offers lessons aimed at women in a number of cities. She paid around $200 and saw it as an investment in her future.

“I’m not going to sit here and say that I can crank out a site today, but I can look at basic code and understand it,” Ms. Henry said. “I understand how these languages function within the Internet.”

[Steely Tom]

Too bad “the language of the internet” changes every three or four years.

[steve8714]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qYF9DZPdw fluent in /javascript and klingon. Is posting this link allowed?

[steve8714]

Hey, it seems to have worked.

[Steely Tom]

Is posting this link allowed?

I'm not the Admin Moderator, but people post YouTube links all the time. They don't seem to get removed unless they contain objectionable content.

[PreciousLiberty]

'Too bad “the language of the internet” changes every three or four years.'

In one sense, that's not really true. Basic HTML from the late 90's still works, for instance in posts here on FR.

On the other hand, the cutting/bleeding edge is constantly evolving. At least things are getting better now that MS and IE (pronounced Aieeee!) are losing their influence on things. ;-)

[freedumb2003]

<H1>
Good old HTML still works for me!
</H1>

[Steely Tom]

In one sense, that's not really true. Basic HTML from the late 90's still works, for instance in posts here on FR.

You're right of course.

I was thinking of someone who told me, maybe three years ago, that "Perl is the language of the internet."

Now it's Python and Java Script. And I didn't see AJAX or PHP mentioned.

And where C#, J++, and F# fit into all this I have no clue. Ditto for Ruby.

Personally, I don't understand why there aren't libraries to allow all the cross-platform stuff to be done in C++. Of course, I say that as a dyed-in-the-wool C++ programmer.

[The Duke]

Of course, I say that as a dyed-in-the-wool C++ programmer.

There's no beating the STL. When I retire however (if ever) I plan on digging into Walter Bright's 'D' language. I think it may be the perfect language (if such exists).

[Steely Tom]

There's no beating the STL.

STL::list is much slower than MFC CList. I say this after considerable personal experience.

Your comment prompts me to look further into STL, though. Thanks.

[steve8714]

Only if you hate to laugh.

[proxy_user]

Well, C++ was never optimized for building web pages, while Java was built into J2EE. That whole monstrous bundle of JSPs, Java servlets, and EJBs was built around Java, not to mention web frameworks like Struts and Spring.

[brownsfan]

bump

[Steely Tom]

Right. Good points. Thanks for explaining, or maybe I should say "reminding."

Is there no way of interfacing C++ to the JRE, or JVM, or whatever it's called? I guess the answer is "no," because if there were such a way it would be available. Compiled vs. Interpreted, I suppose.

[Larry Lucido]

Here is a picture of me graduating from HTML school!

[Jeff Chandler]

EX-cellent! With the market being glutted with web programmers, my outsourcing costs should drop precipitously. Of course, the newbies will competing against very inexpensive programmers in third world countries.

[proxy_user]

You can call ‘native methods’ written in C or C++ in Java using the JNI interface, or you can get the Runtime object and use it to fork off a process to execute a specified command string for the OS.

[PreciousLiberty]

“I was thinking of someone who told me, maybe three years ago, that “Perl is the language of the internet.”

Perl is still around, one of many server-side languages.

“Now it’s Python and Java Script. And I didn’t see AJAX or PHP mentioned.”

Python is server-side. So is PHP, and both are still widely used, although PHP is probably more popular.

AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) isn’t a language, it’s a mechanism for making web pages more interactive (no need for a page refresh to update information or retrieve input). Google Maps, for instance, uses AJAX.

Java and Javascript are two distinct things (Javascript came second and never should have been named that - it was renamed to ECMAscript but for obvious reasons that didn’t catch on).

Java is the most successful/popular server side language. Javascript is the only successful client-side language. Google has proposed a new language called Dart that may be better but isn’t gaining much support - however Google does supply a tool allowing it to be translated to Javascript.

“And where C#, J++, and F# fit into all this I have no clue. Ditto for Ruby.”

J++ has been deprecated, it was the MS Java clone. Not sure about F# except that it hasn’t gained much traction.

C# is the Microsoft server-side clone of Java, replacing J++. It’s considered the most elegant of the .Net languages. However, .Net running only on Windows has hampered it, as so much of the Web is running on Linux and other Unix-like systems.

“Personally, I don’t understand why there aren’t libraries to allow all the cross-platform stuff to be done in C++. Of course, I say that as a dyed-in-the-wool C++ programmer.”

There’s always cgi-bin... ;-)

In general, Java has been preferred due to its (perceived) lack of security problems versus C++. It also has a much larger standard library, which adds value. The performance delta isn’t too wide these days.

If you want a “better” language than Java while still running on the JVM, check out Scala, it’s very interesting. Gosu is also in the mix.

[PreciousLiberty]

Two points I meant to hit but forgot about:

Ruby is yet another server-side language that has a loyal following, but seems to be fading from the scene a bit lately.

AJAX is still going strong, and it’s highly desirable to master it if you want to do Web front-end (browser side) development.

[Steely Tom]

I just wanted to thank all of you for your wonderful, informative, and funny replies.

I’ve refered back to this thread many times. It’s a great package of guidance for future study, and a concise summary that couldn’t be found anywhere else. I’m very grateful. The information in this thread has helped me a great deal.

Thank you so much. The smartest, best informed, most articulate people are on Free Republic!