My point is, for what he is going to use it for, the better alternatives are NOT better
Want to learn Programming Language. Which one?
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My point is, for what he is going to use it for, the better alternatives are NOT better
OP you have to be careful with these types of questions, cause it'll bring out the Mac versus PC argument.
A programming language is only as good as the programmer. If you learn python and create a shitty scraper, then learn perl and create a better scraper - in your case the best language would be perl. A programming language is a tool, what you use the tool for is going to determine if you are using it correctly. If you use a hammer to drive a nail into the wood - that is a great tool for that job, that's the purpose of that tool. If you use a wrench to do the same task, that's a horrible tool for that job, but you might still get the nail through the wood - but you may not even know that a "hammer" tool exists cause you don't have the rounded knowledge, so in your scenario - a wrench works, and that's fine for you. Unless you are trying to get some programming language coding award these debates always end up in the same arguing circle.
It's about learning what tool YOU can use properly for the task at hand the best - that's the best programming language.
Since you are doing affiliate marketing, and working with the web, html, css, and javascript are the first level of what you need since you are interacting with user's browsers. What language you use to manipulate data or control your site depends on what you know and if you can use it efficiently.
I personally prefer perl - yeah some noob programmers will say it's a dead language, bla bla bla - but it gets the job done. What no one outside a handful of people know is a SAAS I'm involved in is 98% perl - there is php involved where it needs to be involved, but since no user sees the backend of what's going on - shit doesn't matter what it's coded in if the job is getting done. If I'm using Cassandra versus MYSQL and Perl versus php - the end user doesn't care nor needs to know any of that. If the site is slow cause bad coding that's on the expertise of the programmer. If I need to hire a programmer to help out - they'd have to know the language I programmed in or should be competent enough to understand the syntaxes quickly and adjust. Once you understand the syntaxes it's all the same shit. I can edit php, python, and pretty much any language cause I know the basics of how a programming language is generally suppose to run - that's where php fails, cause it teaches a bad foundation. But if you are doing simple shit like editing a mysql database, does that really matter? We aren't getting programming awards for 'beautiful code' - let's be realistic.
With affiliate marketing any language will work for manipulating some data or pulling some APIs and storing it into a database. Yes there are some languages that are more skill full at doing one task or another, and faster - but if you don't know all those tricks and techniques - it's meaningless to program in that language cause you heard somewhere "python is a faster scraper", when in the above example you were able to code a faster perl version then your python version.
A programming language is only as good as the programmer. If you learn python and create a shitty scraper, then learn perl and create a better scraper - in your case the best language would be perl. A programming language is a tool, what you use the tool for is going to determine if you are using it correctly. If you use a hammer to drive a nail into the wood - that is a great tool for that job, that's the purpose of that tool. If you use a wrench to do the same task, that's a horrible tool for that job, but you might still get the nail through the wood - but you may not even know that a "hammer" tool exists cause you don't have the rounded knowledge, so in your scenario - a wrench works, and that's fine for you. Unless you are trying to get some programming language coding award these debates always end up in the same arguing circle.
It's about learning what tool YOU can use properly for the task at hand the best - that's the best programming language.
Since you are doing affiliate marketing, and working with the web, html, css, and javascript are the first level of what you need since you are interacting with user's browsers. What language you use to manipulate data or control your site depends on what you know and if you can use it efficiently.
I personally prefer perl - yeah some noob programmers will say it's a dead language, bla bla bla - but it gets the job done. What no one outside a handful of people know is a SAAS I'm involved in is 98% perl - there is php involved where it needs to be involved, but since no user sees the backend of what's going on - shit doesn't matter what it's coded in if the job is getting done. If I'm using Cassandra versus MYSQL and Perl versus php - the end user doesn't care nor needs to know any of that. If the site is slow cause bad coding that's on the expertise of the programmer. If I need to hire a programmer to help out - they'd have to know the language I programmed in or should be competent enough to understand the syntaxes quickly and adjust. Once you understand the syntaxes it's all the same shit. I can edit php, python, and pretty much any language cause I know the basics of how a programming language is generally suppose to run - that's where php fails, cause it teaches a bad foundation. But if you are doing simple shit like editing a mysql database, does that really matter? We aren't getting programming awards for 'beautiful code' - let's be realistic.
With affiliate marketing any language will work for manipulating some data or pulling some APIs and storing it into a database. Yes there are some languages that are more skill full at doing one task or another, and faster - but if you don't know all those tricks and techniques - it's meaningless to program in that language cause you heard somewhere "python is a faster scraper", when in the above example you were able to code a faster perl version then your python version.
My bad then. I didnt read enough to see it was Jose.
I was specifically speaking about OP.
Just to add to this.. pretty much I think everything CCarter does is in Perl. I know he knows PHP, he is always looking over my stuff and tweaking as needed too.
I pretty much only do PHP, but I first learned in Perl. I never code in it though and I pretty much never touch it.
At this point though, it doesn't hurt what we do. I code my stuff and read/write from SQL. CCarter pretty much does the same.
Is it perfect? Probably not. I am sure some python or ruby ( node/go/haskell ) fan would come in and say its all shit. I don't feed my family with shit though, I am ( and I might also say CCarter ) in it for building a great product people love to use and make some money to enjoy life.
In that regards, Perl and PHP has done a fine job for me.
I will say, the Python stuff that Mattseh coded for me and him back in the day did the same thing. The issue is, the Python code Mattseh made for us back in the day is NO WHERE near the level he codes at now ( dropbox text files.. lol ). Point is, the shit worked and made money on a great product, even if the "tech" was not the "perfect" setup or "best" code design.
BTW, this is not a post against Mattseh. I am sure he lols at this when he thinks about it. Its just to show you that the best thing to do is actually code and do shit and improve as you can. I know thats what he did, and thats what I do too. Just start coding and don't worry about "whats better". Make your own better.
Exactly what i was trying to say. Only in the simplest words as i can.
This always brings up the to the "what is the best" arguments.
No harm, no foul. I think we both got off track.
I should clarify, if the OP just wanted to edit wordpress, then go with PHP. But his questions seemed deeper than that.
If I was starting from scratch and looking at what languages to learn I would go with NodeJS.
Not because I code in it (I don't) but because it kills two birds with one stone, he only has to learn one language for front and back ends.
But the added benefit is, if the shit hits the fan and the OP needs to pick up a bit of freelance work, there will be little competition and he'll be paid a good rate vs if he learns PHP he'll be stuck competing with 1.3 billion Indians who will work for $2 an hour.
No one said it in this thread, but the general consensus on the net seems to be "learn PHP because it's easy" but when the point is made that it's slow, can quickly become unmanageable, doesn't scale well, etc, etc, the reply is always "but all they want to do is write simple scripts, that other stuff doesn't matter"
Call me a stick in the mud, but it does matter, maybe not right now, but it will some time in the future. Once the person understands how to program they won't be content with "simple scripts" (no one ever is) and they will want to build bigger and better.
And a good foundation is will save countless wasted hours of frustration.
Thank you everyone for your responses. I didn't intend to open a can of worms, especially since I may have been asking a: 'xbox or playstation' kind of question.
It seems like becoming proficient in: html, css, and javascript are a great step 1.
I'll go from there and keep you guys updated!
It seems like becoming proficient in: html, css, and javascript are a great step 1.
I'll go from there and keep you guys updated!
err... no.
PHP is a server side scripting language, python and ruby are not.
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The field of programming is a long way away from affiliate/internet marketing. And, you don't really need to know HTML to put up a good looking websites. Most hosts will have a shake and bake style site builder (or blog script) that installs in just a few clicks of your mouse. You might still need to know where to insert your banner or ad code. But that can usually be done via widget. You could spend years on learning how to do HTML or any other programming language and still not be earning money. Put more time into learning how to sell and how to write for the web and that will be a better investment of your time. If not that, then hire someone to design a professional looking site and add a web writer to your staff.
I would say that unless you want to go all the way, you should stick with HTML, CSS, Javascript and Python.
PHP is an aborted crack baby of a language and a terrible way to learn. I am definitely with acidie as far as it is concerned. It. Fucking. Sucks.
Python is my personal favorite, nice and simple to write code in once you learn it, extremely practical and time efficient like Perl, and it can either run as a script, or be compiled. It also enforces some good programming practices and if you learn with it, you will develop good habits that will help you a lot when dealing with other languages.
Ruby is cool but maybe a little too much for a beginner.
Perl is awesome, but can also be extremely messy and allows the programmer to do things that might be confusing or induce bad habits and give you trouble later on with other languages. Edit: I guess I should mention CPAN, because it is amazing and stuff... CPAN is an archive of fucking thousands of Perl modules that do all kinds of crazy shit, odds are if you are writing a program more complex than "hello world," there is something on CPAN that already does a bunch of stuff you want to and all you have to do is use the CPAN module instead of writing your own code.
Anyway, you are honestly asking the wrong question (what language) in my opinion. What you really want to learn first is pseudocode and basic algo design and analysis. Once you have that down, the rest is just syntax. Reading through it looks like CCarter already touched on this a little, pseudo translates into just about any "tool" you would like to or need to use for the job.
My workflow is basically Description>Flow chart>UML>Pseudo>Document>Coding
Coding is last because it is the least important, and also because if you do all the other stuff and have a credit card you can just get some Indian dude to piss around with the compiler/interpreter for you. It generally takes me over 3x as long to debug a program as it does to actually write out the code for it, it is also a fucking headache a lot of the time too.
HTLM and CSS are not programming languages, they are basically just for document formatting. Markup language is the technical term for HTML and sheet language for CSS but its really just learning how to internet-typeset.
JavaScript is a real programming language, it is extremely practical and useful, but that is not because it is a good programming language, it is because it runs on the client side in pretty much every web browser that doesn't have it turned off. It is messy and allows for too many bad practices and I would strongly suggest you learn another programming language first, and then familiarize yourself with it.
So yeah, just learn the basic logical operators and control statements and how to write programs out with paper and pencil, learn how to calculate the growth function and big O and learn a nice clean language like Python for starters. Then you will be able to program at a level much higher than most who do not take post secondary CS, and you will have a very solid foundation to build on if you want to continue learning.
After that, learn JavaScript.
With HTML and CSS, I just figure out what I want to do, then google+copy+paste whenever I can. I try to avoid actually writing it myself because it is tedious and boring and also because CSS is a shitty mess.
Try MEAN Stack
You could also try to dabble with the MEAN stack. It stands for MongoDB, Expressjs, Angularjs, and Node.js. Of course, with this you would still have to be well-versed in JavaScript as well as HTML and CSS for presentation. Developing with the MEAN Stack allows for pretty fast development in terms of getting a first version of whatever you are making up and running.
You could also try to dabble with the MEAN stack. It stands for MongoDB, Expressjs, Angularjs, and Node.js. Of course, with this you would still have to be well-versed in JavaScript as well as HTML and CSS for presentation. Developing with the MEAN Stack allows for pretty fast development in terms of getting a first version of whatever you are making up and running.