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Closed 9 years ago.
Friends,
I've got some exp in c++ and now kind of starting my way to J2EE (to survive:))). Meanwhile, I've got a plan to venture in to a web portal my own. But with very little experience in web technology, I'd need to start from scratch. I'm little confused on which way to go and I'm here.
PHP, Python or JSP, considering the fact that, anyway I've got to learn J2EE at my work.
Would that be worth to learn PHP or Python to develop a portal which I expect to get 80-100K
hits per day "IF" everything goes well OR jsp would be sufficient?
Many thanks
Before learning either of these, spend some real time and learn HTML and CSS in depth. Also learn Javascript and JQuery (or your favorite client side library). The O'Reilly books on the topic are pretty much all good IMO.
I say that because I think that you'll find that for most modern web sites, a lot of richness is moving to the client side, and away from the server side. Under this model, your code in PHP or JSP is probably going to look pretty similar (ie, fetch data from the database and serve it to your view or into JSON for the client to consume).
Considering you're used to c++, should look at aspx and c# - probably closer to your current experience.
That said, PHP is a doddle, so it shouldn't present any challenges. Bear in mind that if you want to get the most from the language, you absolutely have to learn a little bit about configuring apache, and frameworks (cake, codeigniter, zend etc).
All the server-side technologies you list are "sufficient" for the volume of traffic you expect, if you design the site well from a performance and scaling viewpoint -- and so do many others you haven't mentioned, such as other Java-based approaches, C# ones, and (last but not least) Ruby (probably with Rails, though, like the other languages, it has several frameworks for you to choose from).
As most everybody said, the client-side considerations are sharper -- unless you want to try a "server-side generator of client-side code" like gwt (I'm told the latter works well, but personally I'm always wary of code generators, esp. using a code generator w/o understanding of the "code" it makes for you, which in this case is HTML, CSS, and Javascript with its own framework). Except for GWT and similar approaches (if that's your chosen poison), really learning HTML, CSS and Javascript is really a must -- and then you get to choose among many, many frameworks again (jQuery, Dojo, closure, etc, etc).
For performance issues, you really want to study Steve Souders' site (and books, etc) -- Steve was a server-side guru until measurement showed him the bottleneck was really client-side, and then he turned himself into the client-side performance wizard;-). But to get the most out of the books you'll need understanding of HTTP, HTML, etc, etc, to start with;-).
Hit's per day isn't a really useful metric for estimating performance. You really need to be concerned with the peak load and the acceptable response time.
80-100k hits per day is an average of about 1 hit per second. The hits are not going to be evenly spread out, so for normal traffic you might expect a peak load of 10 hits per second.
If you are going to promote the site with newsletters or commercials, expect to peack at 100's of hits per second.
If you selling $1 air tickets, expect to peak at 1000's of hits per second.
Now the language you choose for the site isn't nearly as important as your choice of database (not necessarily relational) and the way you store the data in the database.
Scaling up frontends is relatively easy, so having really fast efficient HTML generation shouldn't be a primary concern. Pick a platform that is going to be efficient for development time.
I expect this question to be closed as being subjective. But, I'll put in my 2 cents.
JSP would likely dovetail well with J2EE. (I've heard that it can be a bit rigid, but I have no experience to provide any insight on the matter.)
PHP is a good candidate, because it's popular. You can find a lot of info on the web.
Python isn't as popular for webdev, so finding examples won't be as easy.
I also second Dave Markle's opinion. If you want to learn webdev, HTML, CSS and JavaScript will be crucial as well. You may never want to be a front-end developer, but you can't get away from dealing with those technologies at some point.
There are many options.
Since you already know (and is learning about) Java, one option is to use GWT for both server and client. This can help you in that you do not need to learn another language (JS/HTML/Python/PHP etc). If your portal is going to be big, using Java can help you organise the application better - usually JS/HTML based applications are not very suitable for proper organisation, even if you use good JS Libraries like jQuery or YUI. Having a good organisation can help a lot - during updation and modification later.
If your planned venture is a single/two person venture or if it is time bound - where time to market is everything - then I would not suggest the earlier approach - especially if your server side part is expected to be big.
Java is a slow language to write code in. A project which you will take say 6 months to write in Python will take you close to 1 year + in Java. In such a scneario, I would prefer Python - it is a proper language - unlike PHP, and you create code with good organisation there too - albeit a little less organised than using Java.
Please note that if your client side code is much more complex than your server side code, then going with GWT will do you no harm. But if your server side code is very complex compared to the client side, then I would suggest Python.
Another point is to use existing Web Frameworks to ease your work. For Python, Django is an excellent choice. This itself will decrease your work time by 50% or more, while making your code much more secure and scalable.
It really isn't that similar to C++, but I would recommend PHP. You really can't expect a server-side scripting language to be similar to a compiled language like C++. Personally, I find PHP to be an ugly, messy looking language, but once you get into it, it's very rewarding. Other languages have too many drawbacks. ASP.Net is too Microsoft-centric, Python and Ruby on Rails are too obscure, and are also non-curly bracket languages, meaning it will require a lot of adjustment to change to them. Hope this helps.
Related
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Closed 9 years ago.
I have heard a lot about PHP frameworks like ZEND, CodeIgniter,CakePhp etc and i am also well aware of some advantages of using it i.e. increased productivity,reduced errors etc but doesn't php framework make coding a complex process ? Doesn't coding without framework provides more flexibility ? Some people say you don't need any additional framework, as PHP is itself a framework.
So why there is so much usage of PHP framework ? Are frameworks really necessary in PHP?
This is a broad question and I think an important one. I am in the camp of NOT using frameworks unless absolutely necessary. The question is, when is it necessary?
First off, the thing that I think gave me this strange, allergic reaction to frameworks is that inexperienced coders want to use them for EVERYTHING, even tiny sites.... and it's bizarre. Maybe its through some need to make their resumes bigger by saying they've used codeigniter- but in my experience that doesn't make a damn bit of a difference. Hiring managers want SKILLSETS, not somebody that can read API documentation- which anyone can do. If you have working knowledge about program architecture and OOP principles, you're hired. If you don't, but you're a codeigniter ninja, .... eeehhhh.... ok?
Frameworks have their uses but I think when your mom wants to make a website for her bake sale then you can just slap a page together using a much lighter weight system. I don't sit in the camp of belief that you should include code "in case you need it". Over time, I have developed my own framework that is absolutely tiny, which is why every single web site or application I have ever built has ranked in the top 2% (though usually top 1%) of page load times in the world by google.
This is not to say they are bad- just don't go running off to use a framework because you want to put it on your resume- you're actually shooting yourself in the foot in the long run. Why? Because you won't spend time using the language itself, you'll spend time using the language of the framework. Take jQuery for instance- I avoided it for YEARS because it wasn't JAVASCRIPT. People scoffed at it- but now, when I go to a technical interview and I get asked (inevitably): "What is your experience level with jQuery", and I say "not much", and they for a second look surprised, but then I follow it up with "but I just wrote dependency injection via inversion of control in native JS yesterday"- I get hired ON THE SPOT.
Frameworks are great. Just ask yourself if you really need them. Particularly the question is: are the benefits of coding it yourself outweighed by the time benefits (don't forget about the learning curve of the platform) of the framework or not? On the one hand (non-framework approach), you learn a lot, and perhaps you take more time because you're working out your own kinks- but you learned a ton about the language itself (PHP in this case). On the other hand, you learned a new framework and maybe got a site up quicker that most likely is slower.
Wordpress is a great example of an overused framework in my opinion. Back in my freelancing days I used to take on gigs that needed me to "revamp a wordpress site"- only to find a site that could barely load because somebody plugged in every plugin they could find and made what was a stupid simple site into a tank with ungreased treads. It's OVERKILL in that case.
With my experience in CTO and Tech Lead positions, when somebody puts Wordpress and jQuery as primary points on their resume, to me that says "I don't know a thing about OOP and how to use these languages if required" which, in the real world (and I work on huge projects like windows 8 and other projects of that magnitude) - is OFTEN the case. Microsoft expressly forbids the usage of jQuery in their metro app system for MS released products because they want to show off their system dependency free.
Other companies, however, DO use frameworks. I just got off a project using Foundation and it was AWESOME- but that's because the architect of the project fully researched the framework and we used it RIGHT. The result was a fully responsive pristine code base that went from full monitor glory down to triscuit-sized smartphone screen awesomeness.
IN SHORT:
Frameworks, when used right, can be awesome- particularly for large projects (and I'm talking enterprise large). For smaller projects they aren't necessarily bad- but when they are used without thinking about their implementations, its like using a hatchet for a scalpel.
Just my 2 cents.
Doesn't php framework make coding a complex process?
It depends what you want to do. If all you're doing is creating a basic contact form for a site that is all static HTML, then yes using a framework would make it a more complex process. On the other hand if you're building a large scale app then using a framework would not necessarily make it more complex.
Doesn't coding without framework provides more flexibility ?
This depends on the framework itself, they aren't all the same. Some frameworks such as Slim or Codeigniter are very trimmed down and don't get in the way too much and so don't really impact on flexibility, some are more complex such as Symfony2/Zend.
Some people say you don't need any additional framework, as PHP is itself a framework.
They are right, you technically don't need a framework, you can do anything with plain PHP that you can do with a framework. Frameworks have really evolved from developers personal archives of functions and helper code. PHP can be relatively low level in that it doesn't have a ready made function to do everything you need. Before frameworks, developers tended to have their own set of helper code that would be reused on many projects. Frameworks are still essentially that, except they are collaborative projects that hundreds or thousands of developers contribute to.
One other benefit of frameworks is if you have several developers, and one has developed an application and you want another developer to contribute to it or take over it, then if the developer is familiar with the framework that was used he can get up to speed on the app much quicker than if it was written in plain PHP. Without the framework, the new developer would have to decipher the previous developers system before they even start to look at adding any new functionality.
Are they necessary in PHP?
No they are not, sure it is possible to code anything without frameworks. But it's more work, this is like: Why am I using C when I can do all the same by writing assembler?
So why there is so much usage of PHP framework?
The benefits of using frameworks is, that you can use many predefined things. For example, in most PHP frameworks you can use MVC Pattern. Sure you could also build your own MVC structure with flat PHP, but that is like re-inventing the wheel everytime again. Only thing is, if you have very specific requirements, you may can/should not use a framework, but in most cases the requirements are not that specific.
The point with MVC is only one of a lot benefits. Depending on the framework you want to use, there are specific benefits.
So, it is just like you said. By using a framework you can save time, because you don't have to re-invent everything that already exists.
You can see a framwork as a tool, that helps you to develop better and faster.
Edit: Like Ayesh K mentioned in his comment, it is also a benefits, that a framework is developed by many experts, so it normally is better code, following the principle: 'Four eyes see more than two'.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I need to valorate what technology use for a web project, the team is composed by 4 developers and the time of the project is 1 year.
I'm more familiarized with php but the client is asking me to do it with JAVA EE.
I always have the same perception with Java and its frameworks:
So much xml and class in order to do simple things. In codeigniter I've to use 3 files (model, view and controller) with hibernate + spring + JSF I need more than 10 files!!!
An abusive use of the server. The javascript code lose importance and it's not good nowadays. Of course we can add javascript code but It seems "java web guys" prefer do the stuff on the server instead of the client.
Not good-looking application. Richfaces seems like a web of several years ago.
When I see a java application like liferay, alfresco, they looks heavy and very slowly.
I think I can be a little confused because lots of people and big companies continues using JAVA for the web. Why? it's about integration?
On the other hand Java is faster than PHP, but JAVA's servers need lots of memory (more expensive). In a server with many request we can improve with a language like php with bigger time per process and less memory per process because the server never is collapsed because of memory. Sometimes a JAVA server could collapsed because of memory and the average of response time in a real production environment would be bigger than php.
I'm really pleased with Codeigniter, why so many people thinks Java is better?
Thanks in advance,
Alberto
well I'm not using CodeIgniter so my comparison is already incomplete.
Question one would be: why do they ask for Java? Often big companies only offer Java or .Net environments for productive systems so they might not have the people to productively run PHP applications. I know its not complicated but the maintenance people define what they are running.
Ofter people talk on languages and their features but when the first business use case has to be discussed no framework will save you that amount of time to make it count. Most programming language will somehow solve the issue.
Java is not only RichFaces or JSF. There is a lot to choose from. A LOT. Not an advantage.
Stuff often forgotten is the tool support. Java comes along with a JVM that can be analyzed in detail what it does with its memory, garbage collector, threads and so on. Profilers in Java allow you to identify almost any memory leak within a few hours.
Most of the JVM monitoring works in realtime (with about 5% overhead).
Talking about tool: refactoring support is far beyond what PHP IDEs come along with.
You are correct if the first look at Java compared to PHP looks like elephants and horses. (ok the logo of php is an elephant, perfect comparison...). Horses are more flexible to turn around corners but they might not carry that much around.
I think from a language perspective Java is still more advanced than PHP. Namespaces, Classes, Type-Safety. These are somewhat available in PHP but still quite new.
Frameworks like Spring allow you to leverage your application on an architectural level and are more than just libraries.
I'm not the biggest Java EE fan, so I'll not complain on that.
A simple approach for you could be Tomcat+Spring+SpringMVC and a template engine for the GUIs. There is also GWT (Vaadin) if you target higher speed client behaviour (still a lot more out there).
There are lightweight approaches in Java too. I agree the standards in Java do have a more fatty tendency.
In my experience Java has no major drawbacks compared to PHP. The language choice will only affect success of the project if people come with less knowledge than required and spend too much time in learning things. And trying to find the right book about Java could be a project by its own :)
(counting as an advantage)
But I have no doubts PHP would allow you to finish the project.
I would rather look into the goals and requirements before choosing the technology. This often implies or simplifies a decision.
I hope I did answer at least one question here :)
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Closed 11 years ago.
I was reading the article "PHP Sucks, But It Doesn't Matter" by Jeff Atwood.
In the comments he writes:
That said, I absolutely think it's important for PHP devs to be aware of the architectural limitations of PHP, and understand the alternatives.
What are those limitations and how do they compare with other scripting / weakly typed languages?
Also, what are the alternatives in those conditions where limitations need to be avoided?
There are basically two real limitations I see:
PHP is a fully synchronous language. This has impact on which things you can easily implement in PHP and which not. For example implementing a Long Polling driven chat application isn't trivial, because PHP would need block one process per chatter. I'm not saying it's impossible, you can hack around this limitation using some PHP Daemon library. I'm just saying that this is one of the cases where other languages, like JavaScript, are more appropriate (NodeJS).
PHP is slow. Please don't understand this an an offense. It's a fact that PHP - as implemented by Zend - is slow compared to other scripting languages. This typically is no problem when building websites, but you obviously can't do certain things: Implementing a ray tracer in PHP is definitely a bad idea - whereas in JavaScript you could do this.
But apart from that, I think that PHP is pretty multi-purpose. You can use it for nearly anything - and I do ;)
Take a look at the date. The article was written in 2008.
It means, that if you'll see the PHP5.3 advantages, you'll find there many things, like closures and namespaces, which were in other languages before. Some of them is already affected the architecture of famous frameworks, like Symfony.
And that list will never be complete.
Meanwhile, I meet a lot of people who think that "weak typing" language is an architectural problem itself.
Then, some people think that inline regex syntax is good thing in, for example, JavaScript, but others think, that "different language" must be written down in string constants there, as in PHP. Etc.
I'll take a stab at this without getting too into the nitty gritty:
The initial design of PHP as a collection of functions still shows through.
Object-oriented patterns that have been implemented in the latest PHP 5 releases are still half-baked and lack multiple inheritance (or "mixins"), proper module support, and are designed to be backwards compatible with the CoF (collection of functions) design.
Method overriding and callbacks are not supportive natively.
Closures. They are there, but they are very weak.
Errors vs Exceptions — methods are inconsistent in which they use (thanks again to CoF design), and error-handling is half-baked.
I'm sure I'm stepping on someone's toes here and I'll get any angry mob, but I'm also sure that I still didn't hit everything. It's largely subjective, but it's easy to see what is to dislike when you stack PHP up next to Ruby or Python.
I don't find it odd anymore that all of "PHP SUCKS" articles are coming from developers accustomed to established Microsoft technologies.
What I do find odd are statements that indicate that PHP is a spaghetti code. It's completely up to the author of the code whether the code will be spaghetti or if it'll use certain design rules when approaching the problem.
The reason a lot of PHP code out there is spaghetti code is because examples and tutorials are such that they don't teach beginners the good coding practices. Also, people are quick to grasp examples like hello world or connecting to MySQL, doing a query and looping over the result - but that's it, that's where ALL tutorials stop. I still haven't found a tutorial that covers the following:
what is a framework and what it helps with
what are data structures and data types (explained in a way a normal human can understand)
what is an array, what are array dimensions, how do arrays work, what are arrays useful for
what is object oriented code, why object oriented code, how does PHP do it, what is considered good, why are there patterns out there and so on
As you can see, a beginner programmer won't be bothered to learn all of those points outlined above, I know that because I was a beginner too and did all the mistakes beginners do. However, even if someone doesn't know how to program, they can still create useful applications.
Many popular scripts were written by people who knew WHAT they want to achieve, however they did not know HOW to properly design the environment (framework) in which they'll deploy their php code.
That's why we see scripts that become incredibly popular due to the ease of their use as a regular user which are hard to extend looking at it as a developer, using weird function names, odd coding conventions and no commenting.
Also, what's ridiculous is saying PHP is slow which is absolute nonsense. When I come across such statement, I want to shoot myself in the head for reading such a blog entry.
One has to know several things before making such a statement:
PHP is a scripting language, that means the interpreter is invoked every time someone requests a PHP page which takes A LOT of CPU power. That has been addressed by using bytecode caching mechanisms such as APC which stores the copy of pre-interpreted piece of the script in memory. The results are impressive, and I kid you not - execution for some of my scripts goes from 20 milliseconds to 1 microsecond, where some benefit "only" 5 times. That's on a system that serves 1 thousand concurrent users. Now, if someone wants to tell me that 1 microsecond is slow (or 5 milliseconds) - I'll take that as bullshit.
PHP is not the only thing involved in serving a web page. There's also underlying server (Apache) which has its own issues, there's MySQL which runs queries - and who says all queries are optimal? There's the network, there's the hard disk, there's the CPU, there are tons of other processes. Configure Apache with PHP-FPM, optimize MySQL to perform good on 8 core machine with 16 gigs of ram, use APC, use Memcache - and voila, you're getting an incredibly fast, scalable system capable of serving an incredible amount of traffic.
Languages that PHP is being compared to are often "compiled" into the bytecode and then executed by
You can extend PHP yourself. Assuming a PHP function is slow, NOTHING prevents anyone from creating a .so in C that is able to do the job faster and then hooking everything up trough extension in PHP. Not that I know what would such job be that would require that, but such a thing IS possible.
Sadly, and I say sadly because I respect certain programmers and admire their work (and I'm by no means a PHP fanboy) but it hurts me when I see uneducated, inexperienced and subjective comments about a tool which spreads misinformation.
As for why big websites use PHP - because it's fast. Because they laid proper foundations before starting the projects. Because it's free, extensible and scalable. Because it follows C syntax. Because you can extend it when you need it to be faster. Because it runs on a free operating system. Because it's easy to use.
PHP is improving everyday. It is open source and used all around the world. That said, when you have a problem, it is most probable that you will find your solution or get help faster than any other language.
The very reason of this article, I believe it is simple. If you (or in that matter any other programmer) used to code in C++, Java etc.. they had a lot of possibilities such as OOP coding and PHP was limited in the beginning.
It is a good thing that PHP has many built-in functions / methods / classes so you don't have to spend hours to code some function / class / method which PHP already has.
You don't have to (and you shouldn't) try to memorize all these functions. It is useless to memorize all of them (which one is doing what, how to use it etc). Imagine you are working on some project which took you 4-5 months to finish (yeah big one (: ) You are not going to use all these functions in all the projects and eventually you will forget what they were doing since you don't use them often.
The point is, you should know the syntax of PHP. When you need to do something, check first if PHP already has what you want to do in its library. Check the manual to see how to use it. This way, you will also LEARN (NOT MEMORIEZE) the ones you use often and this information will be hard to forget.
PHP or any other programming language is just like a normal language which we humans use daily to communicate with each other. If you don't use it, you will forget.
PHP 5.3 and above brought many features. Static feature is one of the biggest feature for me. It made my life so much easier that I can't even begin to describe.
Since PHP is that famous and open source web scripting language, Facebook developer team created HipHop.
What HipHop does is, takes the data from PHP and sends it to C++. C++ does all the process and sends back results to PHP for outputting.
The whole idea of HipHop was to make Facebook use less servers & improve the page display times.
Now you tell me if this seems limited and / or slow to you?
i dont think there is anything like 'architectural limitation' for php. developer knowledge limitation might be the reason. read this http://www.quora.com/What-is-Facebooks-architecture . most of the time, non-world-class developer does not know how they could use php to its full capabilities.
I would assume he is referring to the fact the the OOP portions of PHP are not the greatest compared to languages that are purely object oriented.
Architecture Limitations in Addition to nikic's answer
Writing extensions for PHP is a PITA. Not as bad as with Perl or Java, but not as easy as it could be. The ease of extensibility champion is still TCL which hails from the early 90's. Nearly any C function taking char* can be made into a TCL extension.
Embedding PHP in other systems. mod_php, gtk.php.net shows it can be done, but Guile and TCL are much easier to embed.
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Closed 12 years ago.
Now days most of PHP web development companies use PHP frameworks or open source products for developing websites but is that a right approach? If so but what will happen to the PHP programmer skill and knowledge?
Don’t you think using approaches such as “PHP frameworks or open source modification” will kill the programmer skill over the time? Is that really worth it a website developer becomes a better PHP framework writer instead of being a better PHP programmer?
I absolutely have to disagree here. When is started programming, it was PHP and I had no clue what I did. I wrote everything myself and had no will to even look at framework. I spend way too much time in work that repeated again and again.
Frameworks are one of the most useful tools IMO (not only web frameworks)
They speed up development in lots of ways
Looking at the sources, I learnt more about good practices, design decisions, directions to think to
Taking bits and pieces of the framework and use it in other apps where the use of a framework is not possible
They help you focus more on your work (MVC, DRY, KISS, ...) instead of fiddling around with the basic
Most established frameworks have a huge user-base and are very well tested.
I think looking at other code helps you be better and more efficient over time. SO is a very good example of this.
Using a framework doesn't make you a weaker programmer, otherwise I could argue you should write you next web app in assembeler, not much fun.
A framework should be thought of more like an extention to a language, a DSL if you like. For example CakePHP is just PHP with extra cool-stuff that makes handling databases and sessions "cake" - excuse the pun.
By using a framework you take the 'yuk' out of preogramming, and allow yourself to treat data as objects, for example.
If you still feel you shouldn't use a framework, then write one, then use it! By this reasoning you should also go and rewrite the PHP libraries and interpreter, however I don't recomend it.
In my opinion, I don't think frameworks "kills the skills" at all, instead it allows skills and more creative workflows to develop, which ultimately leads to enhanced skill. Also, the understanding of how large scale applications are developed are increased with effective use of well developed frameworks, which is definitely a big plus in the end too.
It allows applications to be developed more quickly and efficiently; and the end result is what matters. If you write PHP and don't know assembly, it doesn't mean you've lost your skill - you've simply focused on a higher level of technological progress in this modern age.
I think it's important to know some of the underlying concepts, such as creating and interacting with databases, OOP, design patterns. Frameworks can introduce you to these concepts without making you learn everything at once. They also have the advantage of several thousand hours of development time already invested, a community of testers and bug fixers, etc.
Anecdotally, you hear stories of people starting with a framework and slowly replacing parts of it as they optimize sections of their site. They distill the framework's operations down to their specific requirements. You can't take this route if you aren't a strong programmer.
Frameworks allow you to do work without reinventing the wheel. And the people working on this framework are probably a lot smarter than you, and they have spent a lot more time thinking about the code.
At the end of the day, it's about getting things done. Any given individual may be more productive with a third-party framework, or without. But a framework is the conclusion of any large project, whether you end up creating it yourself or you rely on the work of others.
To work on PHP based framework, you need to be a better PHP programmer.
so, your skill level will increase and it will not decrease...to tell with an example.
We can start writing all the program in assembly language, why do we use high level language...? If you find the answer for this, then you will get the answer for this problem too. :-)
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Closed 11 years ago.
As a web developer, is it worth me learning the programming language C? Will I ever need to use it? I am currently using PHP and Ruby on Rails.
The unending pain of getting C programs to actually work reliably will teach you a lot about why PHP is a more civilized way to write software.
And yes, you'll use it eventually.
Some day you'll run across a problem ill-suited to PHP or Ruby. You'll be able to fall back to C and look like a hero because you know something more than other folks.
Not really. If anything, learn C because it is fun, and a great language to help you learn more about system internals. Working on web development is very high-level, and you won't get much chance to really get in-depth with the system. Using C can help you better understand how instructions are executed at a low level, how memory management works, and how to create a lot of the things that PHP / Ruby have built in.
Joel Spolsky urges computer science students to learn C:
"Advice for Computer Science College Students" (January 2005)
Learning Latin has it's benefits for understanding the structure of modern derived languages; so in that vein, I say why not?
I've found it very useful knowing C as a web developer. For example, one web app I've written includes a photo gallery. It stores the photos outside of the webroot so that it can check the user's permissions before showing the actual images.
Eventually, I discovered that the overhead for displaying a page full of image thumbnails was incredibly high using the web app in PHP. So, I rewrote the actual photo display code in C as a cgi program, which reduced the overhead to almost nothing.
I don't think learning ANY new language is ever a "bad" idea. Specifically to C, it can only give you a better understanding of how the languages you are using run "underneath the hood".
As others have stated you may not use C, but there are still a number of important concepts relevant to computers and computer science. Some insights can be gained from such classic texts as C Programming Language, by Kernighan and Ritchie.
This includes
Example of very good documentation and writing style in explaining a language in a brief document. You'll find that the complete language is explained in a book not much more than 100 pages. Compare this with some of the tombs of books sold today which position themselves as teaching a language and yet are often more than rehashed API manuals.
Understanding pointers, memory management, arrays and character indexes. All good information which aligns with core computer subjects; albeit low level, but a worthy piece of information for an professional programmer.
Its an easy quick reference book. Again you won't break an arm lifting it and yet gain a lot of knowledge from it.
In general C is useful for those occasions when you really do have to get closer to the machine or need to extend a language through use of a C-API.
Firstly, you have to define "web developer." Are you building websites or web-based software? While both of these tasks easily can fall under the category of "web development," they are somewhat different in terms of the skills set you need to be successful at it.
You're more likely to run into background processing and file/operating system interaction with software than "just" a website, and thus increasing the probability of using a low-level language like C.
Having said that, will you ever use it? Unlikely. High-level languages have been introduced by the dozens to tackle web development. From a web development point of view, if you're having to resort to C, it's most likely because you don't have the necessary skills in more suitable languages. Remember the massive amount of sites and software solutions of varying sizes that run fine on PHP and Rails.
Is it worth learning? Maybe. If you feel like you need hardcore programming skills to complement your web development skills and you have time to spare; go for it. If not, don't. You're probably better off getting really good at Ruby/Rails instead.
Speaking from my own experience, insofar as going from Python to C (and back again, woo!): Yes - learn it.
If you haven't already, learn fundamental, low level data structures; learn them well.
Learn what really makes an HTTP post tick, maybe write some low level debugging tools for yourself and others. It's amazing at how "under the hood" you can get in web development, when you can write an apache module. (Huzzah, bucket brigade!)
Learn the in's and out's of setjmp/longjmp, and perhaps come out with a better understanding of exception handling - that is, how it really works under the hood - in higher level languages.
You might never find yourself writing a line of C code for web development, but if you learn the language well, you'll be giving yourself an edge, all the same. Just be sure not to cut your toes off with it. (:
You'll probably never have to use it, so if you just aim at "usability" just forget it. However, learning C is a good way to get a grasp on the fundamentals of programing. You'll probably gain a much deeper understanding of PHP and RoR for free.
Bug generally, if you feel confident in your languages, no -- it's not worth the price ;).
Although I don't use C anymore, I find it useful to be able to talk to other programmers in their language. You may not have the expertise to solve a particular problem yourself, but you can talk intelligently to someone who can.
The same goes the other way, of course.
And, as pointed out above, C is the foundation of just about every other language that has come after it.
Learning a new language is always a pleasant experience and have a positive impact on the way you program.
Are you going to use C in web development. The answer is, most likely, no. Unless you are going to code a PHP extension or a custom web server.
Its always good to learn a new language , since you are already using Ruby and Rails framework . Knowledge about C programming will come handy when you are trying to learn in depth about Ruby scripting language , Since Matz Ruby Interpreter or MRI is written in C . And also most of the Web servers are written in C and C++ programming language .
Once you have an Idea how Web Servers works , you have an edge in creating a scalable applications , and will also able to analyze plus and minus of the Web Servers above which you are deploying your application.
"Be Jack of all you can be Master at any programming language and at any point of time in your Career" ....:)
Learning more languages is always a good idea. C is great, because a ton of languages are officially or unofficially based on it, and knowing what happens at a lower level can only help.
OTOH, to really advance your knowledge, I'd suggest learning a language that is as drastically different from what you know as possible - Erlang, LISP, Haskell, Smalltalk...
I'll put it this way. C is nuts. It was written in a time before people thought in entirely object-oriented ways. It will frustrate the crap out of you. Its hard to understand AFTER learning things the way you know them now.
But it is immensely helpful in understanding how everything else runs. Its a great language to help you transition to other languages because most modern languages inherit from or are built on it (syntax, data constructs, etc).
Moreover, both Ruby/Rails and PHP are based heavily in C. A lot of supporting libraries are written in C for those languages. Its crazy fast because it's compiled and is quite a bit lower-level, has a much smaller API than either PHP or Ruby/Rails.
I would definitely recommend learning it, even if its just for the fun of learning a new language. My prof always told me: "If you can give me a manual and a project worth working on, and I'll learn any language." So if you can find those two things, go for it!
I say, I say, I say:
Yes... but just a bit.
Just least some very basics: strings, pointer manipulation...
Even if you never actually use it, you'll get much better understanding about performance issues in higher lever languages. Consider strings we're working with all the time:
links are hard by Joel Spolsky
If you learn there is a great chance of achieving success, otherwise there will be no doubt.
Learning languages is never a bad thing. But as a web developer I think your time would be better spent honing on another technology. I've delved in Rails, and Java, but think if I really wanted to learn something new as a web developer, I'd be all over Django, google app engine, javascript, silverlight, flash ... and a handful of other technologies before I even thought about c.
In my opinion, for someone who writes software that runs on a computer, learning C is like learning Latin or Greek for a scholar of anthropology or literary science.
A significant body of the work that has been achieved in software development today has been done in C and that is what you really want to learn: it's not so much about writing your software in C, it's about being able to understand. Both what is possible and what has been done. Were everything comes from and also why we are moving more and more away from C in many areas.
Happy Segfaults! ;-)
The opportunity cost of learning C is high - you can learn something practical instead.
If you are a web developer and wish to continue to be one, it would probably make more sense for you to learn something more applicable to your field: Ruby and figure out how Ruby On Rails works, Python and how Django works, C# and how the MSFT MVC works. Or Flex. Or JavaScript and mooTools/JQuery.
While you can get a lot of basic computer science concepts out of learning C, you will probably never have to touch it. When/if you do, you'll learn it then.
If you wish to learn computer science ( not just slightly lower-level programming ), you can try Project Euler or some algorithms, operating systems, etc literature.