Hello. I haven't done web development since 2003. What tools are people using now?

beer

Lifer
Jun 27, 2000
11,169
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Good evening, and mods, move this to Programming if it is not placed properly.

Basically I have been doing device drivers, in C, for the past two or three years. I use such phenomenal tools as WinDBG, xemacs, cscope, and lanuages such as C89 and tcl. I am still doing that as my day job! But I want to brush up on some, well, less-hardcore skills.

I have no clue how to do front-end web development anymore. The last time I did this was after my first year in college, and I'm now give or take two years out...

The last time I looked, Dreamweaver MX was all the rage. I use some python at where I work. But I don't have an understanding how to integrate front-ends with backend database queries. Can someone just point me to the direction of how "modern" development is supposed to work? I have an agile development with rails book, all 500 pages of it, in front of me now. But how are people doing front-end work these days? I would say that, in the language of RoR, rendering the view.
 

lebe0024

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2000
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RoR has been great. But for the front end I use a basic text editor to craft my xhtml and css. Oh yeah!
 

Ksyder

Golden Member
Feb 14, 2006
1,829
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I'm interested also in web design tools but don't specialize enough to really have great answers for this subject- obviously it boils down to what the needs are for what task you are trying to accomplish. My brother is a web developer and I know CS3 is a big part of what they use. Also PHP is a big part of their website coding, especially with regards to content management systems and the like. I previously mentioned Crimson Editor for a text editor but looking at it's webpage it doesn't appear to have been updated since 2004. According to the recent book "Learning Web Design" from O'Reilly the author recommends TextPad and Adobe HomeSite for Windows text editors relating to web authoring (in case anyone is interested) Me personally I'm more of a hardware nerd. However if I was more ambitious I'd love to become more proficient in the software world.
 

beer

Lifer
Jun 27, 2000
11,169
1
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Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Wait, are you talking about web development or design?

Design. I have the development side covered. Since I develop professionally, it's fairly easy to break into new APIs and languages and that's what I've been doing. But since I'm a developer, I don't, and have never had, a knack for design.