Web Design ABC - Python and Ruby: the Newer Alternatives.

Python and Ruby: the Newer Alternatives.

Thanks to the nature of open source, almost anyone can write a programming language and get a significant number of people to use it: and plenty of people have. Two of the newest and fastest-growing players when it comes to open source web languages are Python and Ruby. Neither of them were web languages originally - they were normal programming languages - but more and more people are starting to use them to power their websites. So what are they, and how do they work? Let's take a look.

Python.

The Python philosophy demands that code should be simple, explicit, and readable. Where Perl wants there to be "more than one way to do it", Python wants there to be only one way of doing each thing - and it wants that way to be obvious. This makes Python

code easy to work with, whether it was written by you or by someone else.

The downside to Python, though, is that it can be slow - not as slow as Java, but still much slower than most languages. It is also very picky about indentation (the number of spaces or tabs at the start of each line of code), as part of its effort to make code more readable.

So does anyone use Python? It might surprise you to learn that Google uses a lot of Python code, and the popular BitTorrent file-sharing system is written in Python.

Unfortunately, when it comes to actual web programming, Python isn't quite up to scratch in many ways: it still shows its roots as a programming language for programs instead of one for the web. It's for this reason that Python on the web is still quite rare - but they're working on it.

Ruby.

Ruby is a relatively new programming language from Japan, and it has a lot of evangelists who simply love it. Why? Well, it lets you do complicated things quickly, easily and readably with very little code: in some ways. It's powerful but simple. Here's some sample code, taken from one of the best Ruby books, Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby (www.poignantguide.net):

['toast', 'cheese', 'wine'].each { |food| print( food.capitalize ) }

What does that do? Well, first, it creates an array with the words 'toast', 'cheese', and 'wine'. It then launches into a function, which prints out the name of each food - in capital letters. All that with one line of code. It might not seem like much, but just wait until it comes time to connect to a database, retrieve records, format them the way you want and put them on the screen, all in one easy-to-read line of code.

Now, Ruby is becoming more popular on the web thanks to a web framework that makes developing websites quicker than it's ever been: Ruby on Rails. Rails is only one year old, but it's already got lots of support, thanks to its big feature it handles the database end of things automatically. Rails is growing at a crazy speed, because programmers love it - it stops you from having to write database code over and over again, leaving you free to worry about how your web page works instead of writing SQL.

Rails works using the principle of "convention over configuration": you do things in a standard way instead of spending time setting it up for the way you've decided to do things. Using Rails' scaffolding function, you can be up and running with a simple database page within minutes - then all you have left to do is build the interface.

Watch Out for Web Host Support.

One of the biggest disadvantages of using a minority programming language is that you might find trouble finding a web host that has it installed on their server. You'll pretty much be forced to go with a smaller host: searching for 'ruby host' or 'python host' will turn up plenty of offers, but they won't be from anyone you've heard of, and they're likely to be more expensive than you'd expect. That's the price you pay for using the latest and greatest languages.

Text Ads Unobtrusive Advertising

Taking HTML Further HTML might seem like a simple language for web documents and to an extent it is thats what it was intended to be If you know what

Registering a Domain Name

Taking HTML Further with Javascript Once youve built your HTML pages you might need them to do something a little more interactive on the client side that

Perl Cryptic Power

Web Design
◦ 5 Simple Steps to Accepting Payments.
◦ 5 Ways to Avoid the 1998 Look.
◦ 6 Reasons Why You Need a Website.
◦ 7 Ways to Make Your Web Forms Better.
◦ A Question of Scroll Bars.
◦ Ads Under the Radar: Linking to Affiliates.
◦ AJAX: Should You Believe the Hype?
◦ All About Design: Principles and Elements.
◦ An Introduction to Paint Shop Pro.
◦ An Issue of Width: the Resolution Problem.
◦ Avoiding the Nuts and Bolts: Content Management Software.
◦ Beware the Stock Photographer: Picking Your Pictures.
◦ Building a Budget Website.
◦ Building Online Communities.
◦ Clean Page Structure: Headings and Lists.
◦ ColdFusion: Quicker Scripting, at a Price.
◦ Column Designs with CSS.
◦ Content is King.
◦ CSS and the End of Tables.
◦ Cut to the Chase: How to Make Your Website Load Faster.
◦ Designing for Sales.
◦ Designing for Search Engines.
◦ Dreamweaver: The Professional Touch.
◦ Encryption and Security with SSL.
◦ Finding a Good HTML Editor.
◦ Focus on the User: Task-Oriented Websites.
◦ Fonts are More Important Than You Think.
◦ Free Graphics Alternatives.
◦ FrontPage: Easy Pages.
◦ Hints All the Way.
◦ Hiring Professionals: 5 Things to Look For.
◦ How Databases Work.
◦ How the Web Works.
◦ How to Get Your Website Talked About on Blogs.
◦ How to Install and Configure a Forum.
◦ How to Make Visitors Add You to Their Favorites.
◦ How to Run Ads Without Driving Visitors Crazy.
◦ How to Set Up Your Hosting in 5 Minutes Flat.
◦ IIS and ASP: Microsoft's Server.
◦ Image Formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG and More.
◦ It's a World Wide Web: Going International.
◦ JSP: Java on Your Server.
◦ LAMP: The Most Popular Server System Ever.
◦ Making Friends and Influencing People: the Importance of Links.
◦ Making Searches Simple.
◦ Offering Free Downloads on Your Website.
◦ Opening a Web Shop with E-Commerce Software.
◦ tag - they have one extra tag before it. This is the doctype, and it must be present right at the top of your document for it to be valid HTML. There are only really
◦ Perl: Cryptic Power.
◦ Photoshop: a Graphic Designer's Dream.
◦ Picking a Colour Scheme.
◦ Printing and Sending: the Two Things Users Want to Do.
◦ Putting Multimedia to Good Use.
◦ Python and Ruby: the Newer Alternatives.
◦ Registering a Domain Name.
◦ Registering Your Users by Stealth.
◦ RSS: Really Simple Syndication.
◦ Setting Up a Mailing List.
◦ Setting up a Test Server on Your Own Computer.
◦ Some Places to Go For More Information.
◦ Taking HTML Further. HTML might seem like a simple language for web documents, and to an extent, it is - that's what it was intended to be. If you know what
◦ Taking HTML Further with Javascript. Once you've built your HTML pages, you might need them to do something a little more interactive on the client-side (that
◦ Taking Your Website Mobile.
◦ Text Ads: Unobtrusive Advertising.
◦ The 5 Principles of Effective Navigation.
◦ The Art of the Logo.
◦ The Basics of Web Forms.
◦ The Basics of Web Servers.
◦ The Case Against Flash.
◦ The Confusing World of Web Hosting: Making Your Decision.
◦ The Evils of PDFs.
◦ The Importance of Validation.
◦ The Many Flavours of HTML.
◦ The Smaller, the Better: Avoiding Graphical Overload.
◦ The Top 10 Biggest Web Design Mistakes.
◦ The Web Designer's Toolbox.
◦ The Web is Not Paper.
◦ There's More than One Web Browser.
◦ Time for User Testing.
◦ Titles and Headlines: It's Not a Newspaper.
◦ Tracking Your Visitors.
◦ Understanding Web Jargon.
◦ Uploading Your Website with FTP.
◦ Using Flash Sensibly.
◦ Using Quizzes and Games to Get Traffic.
◦ VBScript: Javascript Made Easy.
◦ Websites and Weblogs: What's the Difference?
◦ What Do You Want Your Website to Do?
◦ What You See Isn't Always What You Get.
◦ Which Database is Right for You?
◦ Why Doing It Yourself is Best.
◦ Why Java Will Drive Your Visitors Away.
◦ Why Word is Bad for the Web.
◦ Why You Should Put Your Content in a Weblog Format.
◦ Why You Should Stick to Design Conventions.
◦ Working With Templates.
◦ Writing for the Web.

GoogleSense

Making Money with Articles

Webhosting

RSS
◦ Reading RSS Feeds with an RSS Aggregator