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Beginners guide to a modern web dev stack, from padrino to javascript

60 points by SoftwarePatent 15y ago

__float 15y ago
It's crazy to see the way the "modern web dev stack" has progressed over the years. I'm not so confident of whether this is really one that will last in the way LAMPP ever did, but I'm interested in seeing Padrino in particular. These days, the stack relies so much on personal opinions I can't wait to see where we go in the future.
cmadan 15y ago
Missing the following (I don't really know how well these flow with Padrino since I'm a Rails guy) A BDD framework such as Cucumber or RSpec. Something to give structure to your Javascript as all modern web applications are usually Javascript heavy such as Backbone.js or Knockout.js. Templating for Javascript such as Mustache.
tferris 15y ago
Would have liked a bit more information about Padrino and what makes it unique or modern. The rest of the article is rather obvious to me.
- dataminer 15y ago
  Padrino creates a rails like structure around sinatra. It provides convenience scripts, helper methods and some glue code to create rails style apps. If you like sinatra but want more structure around it you should definitely checkout Padrino.
- cryptolect 15y ago
  I was considering Rails for a project but considered it overkill for my needs (small RESTful web service). I discovered Sinatra and fell in love. Then I discovered I could get the benefits of Sinatra, with a bit of Rail-like "magic" (helpers, ORM support, generators, migrations) by using Padrino. For me it's a perfect fit.
nwmcsween 15y ago
The only reason I dislike padrino is due to it's code quality - it's riddled with personal preferences of whomever was coding at the time. I also submitted an 'issue' but it was simply closed.
joshontheweb 15y ago
In my opinion it's a bad idea to begin learning any web dev stack by using preprocessors like haml, coffeescript or less. You need to have a solid understanding of HTML, JS, and CSS first so you can make sense of the maddening quirks the preprocessors can cause.
- karterk 15y ago
  Totally agree. The reason is this: one will at some point have to debug and wade through all the generated JS and CSS code, and unless already familiar with HTML, JS and CSS, this is going to be difficult.
  - chc 15y ago
    Or you could just use a source map. (In the not-too-distant future, anyway. We are talking about the future, right?)
- lsb 15y ago
  Do you think that that concern is as outmoded as forcing people to have a good sense of x86 opcodes, and assembler, to have a sense of what the CPU is actually doing?
  - meric 15y ago
    No, because C compilers are no longer as buggy as they used to be.
  - beck5 15y ago
    The thing is when you are still going to be debugging in a different language, haml -> html, coffee -> js. As a CoffeeScript guy I think one of its main strengths is its harder to shoot yourself in the foot with is great for beginners but you have to be careful a beginner doesn't just bind all the way down using =>
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - 15y ago
cgag 15y ago
I'm just getting into web dev, and the amount of choices is rather overwhelming. I know the basics of html, css, javascript, and ruby. I'm trying to decide where I should start devoting my time though if I'd like to move into freelancing, but it's hard to decide which way to go with rails, sinatra, padrino, node, express, tower, ember, and so on. I can see the value in less or sass, but I'd like to see more details on why you recommend one over the other. Same goes for most of the choices.
- karterk 15y ago
  My take on pre-processors like LESS, SASS etc. is this: To truly appreciate and benefit from them, you should first start facing problems in scaling and managing plain CSS. I would argue that the same goes for CoffeScript. For simple apps, preprocessors offer negligible value addition.
  - delwin 15y ago
    If there's a good enough workflow, there's no reason to not use LESS and SASS in each app. You compile the CSS before production anyway, which means you work with beautiful code, and use automatically minified code for production, and all of it is (usually) taken care of in the background. Plus, if I work in CSS for simple apps and LESS for complex apps, I have to keep two sets of boilerplates. I don't want to be writing CSS from scratch every time I make an app. With using LESS in every instance, not only do I only need one boilerplate, but that boilerplate is modular and I can take the things I need and exclude the things I don't. LESS effectively has namespaces to make this super easy and MORE efficient than plain CSS. No comment on CoffeeScript, though. I've not had to write enough JS to warrant checking it out in depth.
tzaman 15y ago
This post is heavily opinionated and is hardly a beginners guide. I've never heard of Padrino to this day and I consider myself quite up-to-date developer. Beginners should learn languages (preferably with standards in mind) first and then move to pseudo-languages/preprocessors like haml, coffeescript and less. And it all depends on what you are writing, not all languages/frameworks/tools suit every purpose. And Bootstrap is not a javascript library. It's a CSS framework (which includes some jQuery plugins).

It's crazy to see the way the "modern web dev stack" has progressed over the years. I'm not so confident of whether this is really one that will last in the way LAMPP ever did, but I'm interested in seeing Padrino in particular. These days, the stack relies so much on personal opinions I can't wait to see where we go in the future.

cmadan 15y ago

Missing the following (I don't really know how well these flow with Padrino since I'm a Rails guy) A BDD framework such as Cucumber or RSpec. Something to give structure to your Javascript as all modern web applications are usually Javascript heavy such as Backbone.js or Knockout.js. Templating for Javascript such as Mustache.

tferris 15y ago

Would have liked a bit more information about Padrino and what makes it unique or modern. The rest of the article is rather obvious to me.

dataminer 15y ago
Padrino creates a rails like structure around sinatra. It provides convenience scripts, helper methods and some glue code to create rails style apps. If you like sinatra but want more structure around it you should definitely checkout Padrino.
cryptolect 15y ago
I was considering Rails for a project but considered it overkill for my needs (small RESTful web service). I discovered Sinatra and fell in love. Then I discovered I could get the benefits of Sinatra, with a bit of Rail-like "magic" (helpers, ORM support, generators, migrations) by using Padrino. For me it's a perfect fit.

nwmcsween 15y ago

The only reason I dislike padrino is due to it's code quality - it's riddled with personal preferences of whomever was coding at the time. I also submitted an 'issue' but it was simply closed.

joshontheweb 15y ago

In my opinion it's a bad idea to begin learning any web dev stack by using preprocessors like haml, coffeescript or less. You need to have a solid understanding of HTML, JS, and CSS first so you can make sense of the maddening quirks the preprocessors can cause.

karterk 15y ago
Totally agree. The reason is this: one will at some point have to debug and wade through all the generated JS and CSS code, and unless already familiar with HTML, JS and CSS, this is going to be difficult.
- chc 15y ago
  Or you could just use a source map. (In the not-too-distant future, anyway. We are talking about the future, right?)
lsb 15y ago
Do you think that that concern is as outmoded as forcing people to have a good sense of x86 opcodes, and assembler, to have a sense of what the CPU is actually doing?
- meric 15y ago
  No, because C compilers are no longer as buggy as they used to be.
- beck5 15y ago
  The thing is when you are still going to be debugging in a different language, haml -> html, coffee -> js. As a CoffeeScript guy I think one of its main strengths is its harder to shoot yourself in the foot with is great for beginners but you have to be careful a beginner doesn't just bind all the way down using =>
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- 15y ago

cgag 15y ago

I'm just getting into web dev, and the amount of choices is rather overwhelming. I know the basics of html, css, javascript, and ruby. I'm trying to decide where I should start devoting my time though if I'd like to move into freelancing, but it's hard to decide which way to go with rails, sinatra, padrino, node, express, tower, ember, and so on. I can see the value in less or sass, but I'd like to see more details on why you recommend one over the other. Same goes for most of the choices.

karterk 15y ago
My take on pre-processors like LESS, SASS etc. is this: To truly appreciate and benefit from them, you should first start facing problems in scaling and managing plain CSS. I would argue that the same goes for CoffeScript. For simple apps, preprocessors offer negligible value addition.
- delwin 15y ago
  If there's a good enough workflow, there's no reason to not use LESS and SASS in each app. You compile the CSS before production anyway, which means you work with beautiful code, and use automatically minified code for production, and all of it is (usually) taken care of in the background. Plus, if I work in CSS for simple apps and LESS for complex apps, I have to keep two sets of boilerplates. I don't want to be writing CSS from scratch every time I make an app. With using LESS in every instance, not only do I only need one boilerplate, but that boilerplate is modular and I can take the things I need and exclude the things I don't. LESS effectively has namespaces to make this super easy and MORE efficient than plain CSS. No comment on CoffeeScript, though. I've not had to write enough JS to warrant checking it out in depth.

tzaman 15y ago

This post is heavily opinionated and is hardly a beginners guide. I've never heard of Padrino to this day and I consider myself quite up-to-date developer. Beginners should learn languages (preferably with standards in mind) first and then move to pseudo-languages/preprocessors like haml, coffeescript and less. And it all depends on what you are writing, not all languages/frameworks/tools suit every purpose. And Bootstrap is not a javascript library. It's a CSS framework (which includes some jQuery plugins).