What languages should I know to develop these kind of websites?

16 replies
I only know C# and I only developed desktop based apps so far, I never developed any web based apps.


I want to be able to use instagram APIs for example... And I want to develop this kind of website first: iconosquare.com


Will ASP.NET + Javascript + css + html + mssql be enough for me to develop this kind of instagram viewer?


My second question is: I also liked this web app so much: namecheckr.com


It checks usernames if those are available on social platforms. When I checked out the source codes of that site from firefox, I only see html, css, and .js ... So are these 3 languages enough to develop this kind of website really? I checked all the .js files and those codes look pretty irrelevant to the actual script. So where is the real script of this website? We are not able to see it I guess. Sorry but I'm a real noob about web development. Can we know what languages were used to develop this website? I want to learn basics of the web development.
#develop #kind #languages #websites
  • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
    Originally Posted by maryJacko View Post

    I only know C# and I only developed desktop based apps so far, I never developed any web based apps.


    I want to be able to use instagram APIs for example... And I want to develop this kind of website first: iconosquare.com


    Will ASP.NET + Javascript + css + html + mssql be enough for me to develop this kind of instagram viewer?


    My second question is: I also liked this web app so much: namecheckr.com


    It checks usernames if those are available on social platforms. When I checked out the source codes of that site from firefox, I only see html, css, and .js ... So are these 3 languages enough to develop this kind of website really? I checked all the .js files and those codes look pretty irrelevant to the actual script. So where is the real script of this website? We are not able to see it I guess. Sorry but I'm a real noob about web development. Can we know what languages were used to develop this website? I want to learn basics of the web development.
    namecheckr.com uses PHP for back-end (Laravel which is a PHP framework).
    You might want to consider getting familiar with PHP, Python or Ruby to develop web applications.
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    • Profile picture of the author maryJacko
      Originally Posted by Joe Ray View Post

      namecheckr.com uses PHP for back-end (Laravel which is a PHP framework).
      You might want to consider getting familiar with PHP, Python or Ruby to develop web applications.
      How do you know it's (name checker) a PHP site when there is no .php extension in the view source?

      Also, what did iconosquare use exactly? Please list all of them as you can list: html, css, php, jquery, mysql? (I'm not sure)
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      • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
        Originally Posted by maryJacko View Post

        How do you know it's (name checker) a PHP site when there is no .php extension in the view source?

        Also, what did iconosquare use exactly? Please list all of them as you can list: html, css, php, jquery, mysql? (I'm not sure)
        There are some tools you can use to check what back-end code is used on a website, as I mentioned it in my previous post.

        I took a quick look at iconosquare.com as well and it seems it uses only front-end code on the site, html, css, jquery and Snap.svg which is a JavaScript library. This site doesn't have a user input form so they don't need a back-end code to process anything. You can only sign in with Instagram which is handled by Instagram's form.

        There is a Help/Feedback link on the left side of the page which links to an other page iconosquare.desk.com where you will find a user input form. However, this page is not really on the iconosquare.com website, this page is operated by Desk.com. Desk.com uses Ruby on Rails which is a web application framework written in Ruby.
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        • Profile picture of the author maryJacko
          Originally Posted by Joe Ray View Post

          There are some tools you can use to check what back-end code is used on a website, as I mentioned it in my previous post.

          I took a quick look at iconosquare.com as well and it seems it uses only front-end code on the site, html, css, jquery and Snap.svg which is a JavaScript library. This site doesn't have a user input form so they don't need a back-end code to process anything. You can only sign in with Instagram which is handled by Instagram's form.

          There is a Help/Feedback link on the left side of the page which links to an other page iconosquare.desk.com where you will find a user input form. However, this page is not really on the iconosquare.com website, this page is operated by Desk.com. Desk.com uses Ruby on Rails which is a web application framework written in Ruby.
          Thanks for your detailed information. Please PM me some of those useful tools.

          But iconosquare.com has .php extensions in their view sources and URLs, like iconosquare.com/viewer.php etc. I'm a user of that website.
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          • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
            Originally Posted by maryJacko View Post

            Thanks for your detailed information. Please PM me some of those useful tools.

            But iconosquare.com has .php extensions in their view sources and URLs, like iconosquare.com/viewer.php etc. I'm a user of that website.
            That just means they are displaying a different site for different geo locations. At my location iconosquare.com doesn't have any .php extensions. If I try the iconosquare.com/viewer.php URL it redirects me to instagram.com/accounts/login/ because, as I said, here they don't have a user input form. At my location, you can only sign in using your instagram account. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.
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  • Profile picture of the author AnimalsAnimals
    Any language you want! As long if there's a server than runs it, take your pick. When you view a page's source code, you only see what's served to you: HTML, CSS, JS. HTML lays out the page, CSS styles it, and JS modifies the DOM and negotiates transactions between the server and client. You won't see any server side code in your browser.

    As far as choosing a language to develop a web app:

    I have no experience with .NET but I believe it's a solid platform and very scalable.

    Javascript is an extremely useful language to know. It's one of the most popular languages on Github and can be deployed both server and client side.

    Working with JS can be a pain for newcomers. It's tricky to debug and is full of quirks -- it is, however, a very expressive language. JS's popularity is its strongest feature; there is a wealth of resources at your disposal -- frameworks, data storage, communities...

    Then you've got databases... That's another discipline in itself. SQL is one of the most common databases on the web but you might want to look at MongoDB.

    There's never a right or wrong answer. Becoming proficient in a language takes time. However, I would recommend you read: Eloquent Javascript. Don't rush it. Do all the exercises. It's a fabulous book and contains plenty of solid tuition, not just in JS, but in programming itself.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Ray
      Originally Posted by AnimalsAnimals View Post

      Any language you want! As long if there's a server than runs it, take your pick. When you view a page's source code, you only see what's served to you: HTML, CSS, JS. HTML lays out the page, CSS styles it, and JS modifies the DOM and negotiates transactions between the server and client. You won't see any server side code in your browser.
      It's easy to see what server side code is used on websites. You can detect the content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many other things. You just need the right tools.

      For example, in this case, I could easily detect the PHP framework used on namecheckr.com.
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  • Profile picture of the author robomedia
    First of all you need to know how to build basic websites : HTML + CSS .
    Then you need to make sure you know how to make it dynamic and reactive on front end , user interface - JS
    Any server side programming language will work as you will be communicating frontend -> backend , .NET has all the tools you need, so if you fell strong with it and you like it just use your skills.
    If not - python/php/ruby/node.js will work as well. PHP seems to have a bit of bad reputation, but it works and it's probably easiest to learn as a platform.

    So my advice is - just try to build a minimal version/a prototype of what you want to build.
    Start with simple frontend, learn the tools. See what you're missing and rebuild etc .
    There is no magic pill.
    If you're a programmer you should already know that nobody will help you if you don't search for solution yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tekno778man
    PHP and HTML are the basics to create this type of sites.
    These are not much difficult.
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    • Profile picture of the author gettyhosting
      I believe you can use codeigniter+mysql
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  • Profile picture of the author ChenOldman
    Originally Posted by maryJacko View Post

    It checks usernames if those are available on social platforms. When I checked out the source codes of that site from firefox, I only see html, css, and .js ...
    That's because you're only able to see what your browser receive from the server.
    You're looking a the client side of the communication, but you can't know what happened server side to obtain that code.
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  • Profile picture of the author zozoreview
    I think you shoul learn PHP.It's very simple and pupular
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  • Profile picture of the author John Nash0
    html then css then php then javascript
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  • Profile picture of the author thehypnoguy
    PHP is going to be the easiest for you to start with since it is C ported to the web.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nguyen Tu Nam
    Hi, Why don't you give Node.JS an opportunity to help you out. With Javascript, HTML, CSS, you can build a really big website. You don't even need C# and ASP.NET.
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  • Profile picture of the author RickFlair
    HTML and CSS are pretty much the basic languages for web development. You'll definitely need to know these to develop any kind of websites/web apps. And that is just for the front-end (what you see) part. You should also add JavaScript to that list to add more functionality to your site.

    For both the websites you've mentioned, you only get to see the client side languages in the source code, that's why there's only HTML, CSS and JS.

    For your website development, you should focus on HTML and CSS at first. You can try them out with website development platforms such as Blogger and WordPress (which uses PHP as well). After these, you should move on to either PHP or JavaScript. Both have been around for quite a long time, so you will find a lot of resources on the web to help you out.

    PHP is heavily used for server side programming, and thanks to WordPress, it is used in a major chunk of websites all over the web.

    JavaScript may seem like tough to start with, but you'd need to know it in order to add functionality to your website, and it can be used on the server side thanks to Node.js, which can take out PHP any time in raw performance.

    There are other options like Python and Ruby for back end as well. But I believe it is worth to give JS a chance, since it is applicable on both client and server side along with the high performance output when compared (especially to) PHP. This blog post should definitely help you out
    Node.js Vs PHP | Performance Comparison - Node js or PHP

    You also have databases to take care of. A number of options are available, MySQL being the most popular choice and well-suited for PHP, Python. But if you do go for Node.js you should pick MongoDB, which will work better since both are event-driven.

    Good Luck.
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