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HELP! Which programming language?

Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:28 pm
by absticles
Hi there.

I am not sure whether this is the right forum, but it's the most relevant I could find! If it's not if you could point us in the right direction I'd appreciate it!

I'm a student at Leeds University studying New Media in my third year and I've just started planning for my final year project. The gist of my project is to create an online diary similar to livejournal with a twitter feel but far more specialised towards my target audience.

I'm having trouble deciding which programming language language to write it in. I am only offering the journal facility to a certain group of people. I want them to have their own space and I want the readers/followers (family and friends which they have approved) to be able to post different forms of media (music/videos/images/news articles) after each diary entry.

Having discussed it I was advised to use one of the following:
- PHP using a wordpress cms
- DNN & c# / visual basic
- Coldfusion & a CMS

I was wondering what anyone else's thoughts were? I've some experience with CF but none of the others. I have to create it by May so I need to be able to realistically learn and implement a language by then! :(

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks,
Abi

Re: HELP! Which programming language?

Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 7:50 pm
by califdon
I would favor PHP, with or without Wordpress. I think you would be likely to learn it faster than any other alternative, it is fully capable of such an application, and you would have greater control over the operations, without learning a low-level language like C#. No doubt others may have different opinions.

Re: HELP! Which programming language?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:34 am
by JNettles
I'd stay away from the .NET platform if I were you. .NET is incredibly powerful if you know how to leverage it but it takes awhile to learn its niceties (whether you're doing C# or VB). If you're familiar with Cold Fusion I'd say stick with that otherwise start learning PHP.

Re: HELP! Which programming language?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:40 am
by papa
Depends on where you want to go with your skills. If you only want to do this diary thing then I'd suggest PHP as it's pretty easy to learn.

Otherwise .net is a good choise as there is a lot more jobs in that area.

Re: HELP! Which programming language?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:58 am
by absticles
Hmm. Okay, think I'll make a start with PHP. I just wanted to be sure that it would be able to create an app of such kind taking into account the timeframe I've got...

I appreciate the advice. Would anyone be able to recommend a good learning resource for a project of such nature? I found the online PHP manual which I am going to make a start on... But is there any other resource someone could recommend?

Thanks so much.
Abi

Re: HELP! Which programming language?

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:30 am
by califdon
absticles wrote:Would anyone be able to recommend a good learning resource for a project of such nature? I found the online PHP manual which I am going to make a start on... But is there any other resource someone could recommend?

Thanks so much.
Abi
Google for PHP TUTORIAL and you will find many, some very good. A good place to start is always http://w3schools.com/.

Good luck.