4 ms·

I was half joking, the parent said python was incredible powerful to him because it allow him to make money quickly, some would say php is king in that domain.

I was half joking, the parent said python was incredible powerful to him because it allow him to make money quickly, some would say php is king in that domain. By quickly he meant from the process you start learning your first programming language to be able to make money with that language.

mercer 12y ago
I both agree and disagree with the truth part of your joke. I agree in that a bunch of people I know started out with Wordpress or even Joomla, and managed to get a site working for a paying client relatively quickly. And making money was a great motivator for them to get better, and 'grow' out of php, or at least start using better CMS' or frameworks (or write their own wordpress plugins). I've found that especially designers who 'know a bit of html' seem to get pretty far with Wordpress and a bit of jQuery they copy and paste. The result is usually an abomination in my eyes, but hey, if they're getting by doing it, and especially if it's a gateway to getting better at actual programming, why not? That's how I did it! But I I also partly disagree in that I've also met quite a few web 'developers' who did so well 'snippeting' their Wordpress/joomla sites together, that they never moved beyond that and eventually succumbed to fierce competition. Because now they're competing with non-programming designers who can build fancy looking websites with cool interactivity, and are better at making it look good. Because I've seen both good and bad come out of it, I usually try to gauge what kind of person I have in front of me when they approach me for help or advice. If it's someone who doesn't seem to have the inherent curiosity to become a better programmer, I might just help them set up their first wordpress site and do my best to keep them from doing too much 'damage'. If I do see a bit of curiosity, I try to gently steer them towards other solutions (Middleman + heroku, or Ruby on Rails for example) that are a nice midpoint between some 'coding' and seeing quick results. And if I think I have full-blown future programmer in front of me, I just throw tons of stuff at them, usually right in the browser dev console, (closures, callbacks, functional-style programming) and relish seeing them try to figure it out and go home and tinker with a Fiddle! Those are my favorites.

mercer 12y ago

I both agree and disagree with the truth part of your joke. I agree in that a bunch of people I know started out with Wordpress or even Joomla, and managed to get a site working for a paying client relatively quickly. And making money was a great motivator for them to get better, and 'grow' out of php, or at least start using better CMS' or frameworks (or write their own wordpress plugins). I've found that especially designers who 'know a bit of html' seem to get pretty far with Wordpress and a bit of jQuery they copy and paste. The result is usually an abomination in my eyes, but hey, if they're getting by doing it, and especially if it's a gateway to getting better at actual programming, why not? That's how I did it! But I I also partly disagree in that I've also met quite a few web 'developers' who did so well 'snippeting' their Wordpress/joomla sites together, that they never moved beyond that and eventually succumbed to fierce competition. Because now they're competing with non-programming designers who can build fancy looking websites with cool interactivity, and are better at making it look good. Because I've seen both good and bad come out of it, I usually try to gauge what kind of person I have in front of me when they approach me for help or advice. If it's someone who doesn't seem to have the inherent curiosity to become a better programmer, I might just help them set up their first wordpress site and do my best to keep them from doing too much 'damage'. If I do see a bit of curiosity, I try to gently steer them towards other solutions (Middleman + heroku, or Ruby on Rails for example) that are a nice midpoint between some 'coding' and seeing quick results. And if I think I have full-blown future programmer in front of me, I just throw tons of stuff at them, usually right in the browser dev console, (closures, callbacks, functional-style programming) and relish seeing them try to figure it out and go home and tinker with a Fiddle! Those are my favorites.