Where to go from here? Cloud?

[rh71]

Cloud is such a general term yet I don't know how I could transition into that space where I can apply myself. I've been a Coldfusion app developer forever and have a good grasp of a few db backends (DB2, SQL Server) as I work with them daily. I've also started working with PHP on my own as I know I cannot ride this job for another 20 years. But I've gotten the idea that PHP is not really for enterprise, not career-wise, but could be wrong. Even my own company (Global IT) is focusing on cloud and our division (Services) along with many others are being phased out via outsourcing. So how do web app developers transition into what's in demand there? Aren't web applications already cloud-based anyway (server-dependent) and so it's a natural fit? Same skillset, applied any differently?

At this point, I'm 40 and I don't feel I need to climb any corporate ladders but want to remain marketable.

 

[purbeast0]

All the Cloud means is doing development for code that runs on a server that can be hit from "anywhere". It's really nothing more than that. I can't stand that buzzword too.

So basically anything that will run on a backend is something you can get into. That is a lot of different languages and technologies. I personally enjoy doing Javascript for both front end and backend.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It can mean a little more than that. With an old-school hosted server you expected to have things like a local, persistent file system and often the MySQL db was on that same server. Your single server lived forever.

A cloud server design might have a cluster of server images that are NOT persistent, and can only use their own local file system for temp files and caching of files copied from shared storage. The servers are spun up and killed off as needed by other cloud services for scaling, versioning and health checks. Server images and persistent file storage are stored in the cloud, and there are separate database servers.

Amazon AWS is a good place to start since they are the leader. You can set up your account and explore the eleventy different services fairly cheaply since you get some use for free and the rest is billed on either use or time with both having very low rates.

 

[mxnerd]

I'm not programmer. But feel CouchDB (PouchDB) / Javascript combo has great potential.

 

[mxnerd]

Electron Desktop App? Can't believe Javascript has advanced so much in the past few years.

http://electron.atom.io/

 

[beginner99]

For web development JavaScript, css and html5 are a must. Now you could use JavaScript also in the back end but I advise against it, because it's just a hipster fad and will soonish go away again compared to say Java for the backend. Of course Java is less sexy but better for getting jobs. Alternative would be c# which nowadays for backend also works for Linux and Python. Python is also good for machine learning which is getting more important by the minute.

 

[purbeast0]

For web development JavaScript, css and html5 are a must. Now you could use JavaScript also in the back end but I advise against it, because it's just a hipster fad and will soonish go away again compared to say Java for the backend. Of course Java is less sexy but better for getting jobs. Alternative would be c# which nowadays for backend also works for Linux and Python. Python is also good for machine learning which is getting more important by the minute.

I wouldn't necessarily say that is true by any means. It just depends what you want to do. At least when I've searched, there are a lot of javascript jobs out there. More than people can fill. You can now even write desktop applications with javascript. At first it started out as a front end web app tool. It then moved to also being able to run backends. Then you could write mobile applications in js. And now you can write desktop applications in js.

js isn't going anywhere any time soon.

 

[mxnerd]

For web development JavaScript, css and html5 are a must. Now you could use JavaScript also in the back end but I advise against it, because it's just a hipster fad and will soonish go away again compared to say Java for the backend. Of course Java is less sexy but better for getting jobs. Alternative would be c# which nowadays for backend also works for Linux and Python. Python is also good for machine learning which is getting more important by the minute.

Google Angular team cooperate with Microsoft on TypeScript, a JavaScript superset that compiles into plain JavaScript. TypeScript now runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

JavaScript is fast and available everywhere, no need to download Java runtime. Java is slow, ridiculous big and the UI is ugly. I see that JavaScript/Node.js will replace Java in many situations..

 

[beginner99]

Google Angular team cooperate with Microsoft on TypeScript, a JavaScript superset that compiles into plain JavaScript. TypeScript now runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

JavaScript is fast and available everywhere, no need to download Java runtime. Java is slow, ridiculous big and the UI is ugly. I see that JavaScript/Node.js will replace Java in many situations..

Time will tell who was right when people start to realize the maintenance mess JS really is. Worse than your normal Java program.

Java isn't slow, that was like 2 decades ago...In some edge cases it's actually faster than C due to JIT compilation. I mean a lot of the web and huge part of business apps actually run on Java so it won't go anywhere in the next 2 decades.

EDIT: also npm is a joke. I mean couple month ago some guy deleted all his repos and he had one that contained a left-pad function that broke thousands of builds. i mean WTF? which standard library doesn't have a left-pad? And who the fuck thinks it's a good idea to use a npm model for left-padding?

http://www.haneycodes.net/npm-left-pad-have-we-forgotten-how-to-program/

Doesn't shine a great light onto the node.js community. besides that the function itself sucks.

 

[mxnerd]

JavaScript does need a standard library. Big players should get together and make one.

One the other hand, it's programmer's responsibility to download codes from repos and include them locally. not referencing them directly from repo website that might disappear anytime.

 

[purbeast0]

Time will tell who was right when people start to realize the maintenance mess JS really is. Worse than your normal Java program.

Java isn't slow, that was like 2 decades ago...In some edge cases it's actually faster than C due to JIT compilation. I mean a lot of the web and huge part of business apps actually run on Java so it won't go anywhere in the next 2 decades.

EDIT: also npm is a joke. I mean couple month ago some guy deleted all his repos and he had one that contained a left-pad function that broke thousands of builds. i mean WTF? which standard library doesn't have a left-pad? And who the fuck thinks it's a good idea to use a npm model for left-padding?

http://www.haneycodes.net/npm-left-pad-have-we-forgotten-how-to-program/

Doesn't shine a great light onto the node.js community. besides that the function itself sucks.

I'm not really sure what you mean by maintenance mess of JS. How is it any different than any other language? I've worked with Java (and Groovy) a lot more in the backend than I have Javascript and I don't see how you can come to that conclusion.

Saying npm is a joke is just ignorant as well especially for your reason. Let's blame the library writers instead of the developers that implemented stuff with it. It's 100% on the developers. They could have easily forked it and used their own fork instead.

 

[mxnerd]

Wow, so many big players build their websites with Angular.

https://www.madewithangular.com/

 

[rh71]

For web development JavaScript, css and html5 are a must. Now you could use JavaScript also in the back end but I advise against it, because it's just a hipster fad and will soonish go away again compared to say Java for the backend. Of course Java is less sexy but better for getting jobs. Alternative would be c# which nowadays for backend also works for Linux and Python. Python is also good for machine learning which is getting more important by the minute.

Would you say doing front-end JavaScript and the like could net a 6-figure salary these days? It doesn't take much to realize how pervasive it is even after so many years. The responses have been helpful, thanks.

 

[beginner99]

Would you say doing front-end JavaScript and the like could net a 6-figure salary these days?

Probably not unless you are really good, eg, known and also where said job is. 100k in SF or NYC isn't great at all.

 

[purbeast0]

There are plenty of 100k+ jobs doing web-app front end development out there. I know because I've had one for nearly 5 years now and make well over that.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I always picture cloud as a more robust version of virtualization because you're hitting an off-site hosted data center that's likely rated with higher security and fault tolerance. The problem with doing things in-house like this is the sheer magnitude of the infrastructure required to provide that level of service. You can get cheap servers, a cheap SAN and a load balancer but when you get into power grid, cooling, fire suppression, physical security, and network links....there are huge economies of scale benefits enjoyed by the companies selling mass server space. You're talking millions of dollars in setup and even more in whatever software licensing you may have to do if you're a decent sized Enterprise.

The problem I see with cloud is that all of those things I mentioned make your system somewhat of a black box. Having someone tell you they're compliant with federal data security laws doesn't make it true, but it's often good enough to sign a contract. (I'm thinking of HIPPA primarily since medical is one of the larger industries, but there are other regulations other industries must conform to in finance, education, etc...) There are also concerns of geographic location and mirroring between data centers. You could have a router go down with your Internet link (Comcast, CenturyLink, AT&T, etc for instance) and be SOL for a day because you may not be rerouted properly until they fix the issue or clear ARP cache somewhere down the line... I like having mission-critical intranet services on the intranet....not 1000 miles away. I see the merit in cloud if you're buying a hosted service or want to park a pre-configured appliance VM in cloud space somewhere for cheap instead of paying for hardware. There's a lot of that going around these days by developers.

 

[DaveSimmons]

>> I like having mission-critical intranet services on the intranet....not 1000 miles away.

That's why my 1,200+ CD collection is stored in FLAC format on a local jukebox instead of streamed from the cloud

If a service is truly local-only, then having it on a LAN server might be more reliable as long as you have redundant hardware and a working fail-over scheme.

The problem is, how many services are local-only? If your server needs to allow connections from outside the building (customers, travelling sales staff, remote workers) then when that single ISP connection goes down you are in trouble anyway because they are all cut off. But if it's cloud-based, people in the building could for example use cell tethering, while everyone outside it still has access.

 

[Malogeek]

EDIT: also npm is a joke. I mean couple month ago some guy deleted all his repos and he had one that contained a left-pad function that broke thousands of builds. i mean WTF? which standard library doesn't have a left-pad? And who the *** thinks it's a good idea to use a npm model for left-padding?

http://www.haneycodes.net/npm-left-pad-have-we-forgotten-how-to-program/

OMG I had no idea programmers did that. isArray with 72 dependent npms lol.

Speaking of "cloud", I'm moving our product development department from a traditional dedicated server model that has zero scalability and performance is ancient and horrid, to the "cloud" as it is defined and extrapolated above. Meaning I'm moving to scalable vps instances, specifically Digital Ocean Droplets.