Web Development Tools quick survey by Skybuck

Hello,

I want to develop a pretty simple website with a database, some forms/gui
controls and some images.

I want to develop it as fast as possible, as easy as possible and as high
quality as possible.

The last few days I have been examining some tools:

1. Delphi for Win32 (IntraWeb/ISAPI/CGI)
2. Delphi for .NET
3. Delphi for PHP
4. Visual Studio 2008/CSharp/.Net
5. Netbeans 6.0/Java
6. Expressions/Blender (some weeks/months ago)
7. Frontpage

Now for some quick conclusions/analysis:

1. Delphi for Win32(Delphi 2007 with tweak pirate on the net), intraweb is
best alternative I have seen so far. However licenses are missing so this
makes it useless for real web development/deployment.
CGI development with frontpage costs to much time hand coding everything.
ISAPI only is too complex I don't understand it, tutorials are missing, you
ll need to spent big bucks for training sessions etc.

Standaline Intraweb not reachable from other computers, pretty useless if I
want to show a demo to others by letting them visit my computer via local
net or internet.

2. Delphi for .NET (BDS 2006 pirate on the net), very buggy totally useless.
Even had a bluescreen with the cassini server.

3. Delphi for PHP, might be interesting for php developers, very early
software, and ofcourse php is open source so makes stealing websites easy by
hosting providers, and it's a case sensitive language. Not so good.

4. Visual Studio 2008, pretty much crap for newbies, way too complex, setup
time/installation time took forever, can't place buttons where you want
them. I couldn't figure it out how to do it. Newb unfriendly.

5. Netbeans for Java SE/EE, Very impressive looking IDE, I haven't used it
yet, but I just gave it a quick run. It did do exactly what I want to do,
just place some labels and some pull down list boxes etc. Only other
products that managed to do this:
Delphi with IntraWeb, Delphi for PHP, Delphi for .NET and FrontPage. Vistual
Studio did not do it as I wanted it to do.

However sun has a problem: There website is totally messy, java updates
everywhere, they shouldn't call it an update... if it's a full install.
SE/EE is confusing. They should simply integrate that together or something
or simply include it with netbeans or rename it: To Client Technology and
Server Technology.
There website download links for jdk 6.0 update 4 did not work. I ended up
downloading netbeans with jdk 6.0 but this ide was useless because it was
for se only it did not contain the server technology was is ofcourse needed
for web development.

After installing the netbeans ide with the jdk, then removing the netbeans
ide, then downloading the ee sdk kit, installing it, installing the full
version of netbeans I finally had a working netbeans with server technology
for web development with a nice visual web designer etc.

It looked very easy and very impressive, most impressive web tool I have
seen so far.

I am not sure if it will work with www.myjavaserver.com

That website is free java hosting but they mention SE compatibility ? Do
they have EE compatibility ?

Confused. It does mention servlets 2.3. Hopefully it will work but I am
skeptical.

I gave netbeans 6.0 like 2 minutes of a try and I was already more impressed
with it then visual studio could probably ever achieve.

So I am gonna try netbeans 6.0 with ee/server technlogy and I will give that
a review later on, I expect it's the only tool which will meet my
requirements and is ready for real world website development.

The technology seems pretty stable in contrast with visual studio which
keeps changing and changing and changing.

..NET for example is changing, changing, changing and changing very much, If
you write code today in .NET it will be obselete tomorrow, very very very
bad investment.

6. Microsoft's Expression/blender tool for silverlight and such is very
complex. The whole concept of silverlight is probably pretty stupid. Can you
imagine a world where every motherfucking developer is reinventing the gui
and creating web applications with all different gui's ? The horror I can
only imagine, users being confronted with having to learn gui's for each
different website.

I have seen many websites which are overly complex designed... I bet you
have seen some of them... not referering to silverlight here... but just in
general... very crowded websites I dont like them I wonder what tools are
being used to create such crowded websites ? Maybe netbeans ? Who knows ;)

7. Frontpage did ok but was not good enough. I couldn't place the buttons
and such where I wanted I could not align them like I could in intraweb and
netbeans.
Intraweb and netbeans will provide a much better looking gui.

Only question is can those gui's with obsolute positions be made to scale
when user has large window ?
(This probably is possible and involves writing manually positioning
adjustmenst during page load)
But who knows maybe there is an easier way to do that.

The complexity of web development in general and especially of some tools is
quite amazing and pretty shocking, after these few days of looking around I
think I am gonna like NetBeans the best.

I did try NetBeans a long time ago and it seems to have improved quite a lot
?!

I can tell this by just using the tool for 2 minutes ! GO FIGURE ! Sure it
had hick ups here and there.

But it looked good, nice and especially very intuitive.

While vistual studio of microsoft was pretty much crap, vertical tool
palettes yak, pinpointing yak, collapsing tool palettes yak, weird selecting
of buttons yak. I can not click on the tool palette and then click on the
form and place the button it worked very weird.

From this quick survery I am very amazed:

1. Microsoft has the worst development IDE based on this quick survey.
However the number of webhosting companies offering microsoft windows is
probably large and well understood and done.

2. What about java are there many good java servers and webhosting companies
? I don't know but there probably will be.

3. Borland should try to acquire intraweb before it's snatch away by others
and buy them out or something... but I think intraweb is already integrated
into their newest delphi ide which is not yet pirated so I can't evaluate it
fully. The weird thing is, without a pirate being availalbe I am forced to
look into other free alternatives.

This is the biggest adventage of Java/SE/EE/Netbeans, as far as I know it's
completely free ?!!!!!! and it's ready for prime time.

4. Expressions/Blender is going directly into the waste basket that's for
sure I don't see a real future for this technology, it's too complex too
link gui's to code and the whole idea is pretty crazy, but who knows...

There are other tools out there but I don't consider them real web
development ide's... like maybe macro media dream weaver ? I don't know what
that's all about.. it's probably some php web development thingy mostly
focused on design.. I have seen people design nice weblayout with it etc but
ok.

Then macromedia flash and stuff like that, never really tried that... it's
macro's own technology, pretty little company probably compared to others,
they are completely dependable on microsoft's cooperation if microsoft wants
to destroy macromedia flash the only thing they have to do is make a nasty
bug in active x and simply ban macromedia and the company/flash will die
faster then a boing 747 hitting a building ;) None the less the number of
websites using this tool is quite staggering and amazing. Why microsoft
hasn't killed flash yet is a mystery to me? Are they afraid of lawsuits ?
Are they afraid they will loose market share to firefox which might be an
alternative to flash ?

If I was microsoft I would axe macromedia flash support immediatly and screw
those bastards.

Simply make up a story: From now on IE 7.0 only supports WEB standards.
Flash not a webstandard so it gets axed. Maybe axe active X to axe flash.
Sacrifice for silver light victory. Then secrelt build silverlight into IE
7.0, just pretend it doesn't use active X ;) Make up a nice story.

Well that's my analysis for now.

I have lots and lots and lots more analysis to do especially about netbeans
and server support.

One thing I wonder about is why do server hosting companies not allow simply
executable to be run ?

This would allow developers to write any kind of server software which could
communicate simply with windows executables.

For example the poker websites use a kinda of setup like that I suspect or
maybe they simply communicate via http. But that brings some overhead...
directly communicating via tcp is possible as well.

Maybe there are hosting companies offering completely windows operating
systems so one can configure it yourself...

Or maybe there are hosters which will permit any executable from running and
maybe some remote gui management thingy or something.

So the last alternative is maybe

8. Simply developy a GUI application for windows and maybe users will
install it.

I haven't discussed this with my sister yet if she would like something like
that.

Probably not, for now I will assume she really wants a web site/application
and not just only a windows gui application.

The big benefit of web sites is ofcourse they can be accessed anywhere on
any computer/operating system/browser and people don't need to install
anything afraid of infections or so. But ofcourse websites have risks as
well ;)

Google did not turn up any good tutorials for those complex tools like
Delphi + PageProducers or Visual Studio and all it's junk/complex stuff ?

What good are such tools for the newbies without good tutorials ? No good at
all.

The only people that might benefit from such complex tools are people with
lots of cash and willing to pay for expensive training sessions.

And then that's all they will be able to do, just that, kinda sucks.

So the little man/little developer is pretty much being ignored by microsoft
it seems. I wonder if the average kid in school could use such tools
probably not, these tools are so new, there aint no teacher able to teach
this stuff. That's why it needs to be intuive and netbeans is that and
visual studio is that simply not.

Is their irony in this story ? The biggest software company in the world has
the worst development tool.

Now vista pissed off some people as well.

Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing all to well for now.

Kinda funny.

For now microsoft has little to worry about, there still is no operating
system which could replace it, the competition has worse/junk operating
systems which the average mother or grandma couldn't ever handle.
Competition has unnecessary complex and dumbass gui's if present at all.

Layers of abstraction are higher, how is code executed by cpu's, how are
harddisks accessed by databases ?

Is it possible to get insight into this via the IDE's mentioned ? Probably
not, except maybe Delphi a little bit for CPU's and Visual Studio and maybe
Netbeans just a little bit too.

For databases ? and tables and such I don't know ?

For example:

What will happen if images are inserted into tables where other
information/fields are present.

Will this slow down the database/tables a lot because of large gaps between
information. Many seeks ? Lots of bandwidth to sift through... who knows ?
;)

With these technology it's just hope and pray that they implemented it well
and performance well, if not then you probably sitting in the dark wondering
what's going on ;)

Maybe keeping images and video out of tables or place them in special tables
is best just in case...

Well now this dicussing getting to specify for a certain case but none the
less it survives as an example for things to possibly look into for
performance reasons.

Lastly csharp also has linq that requires having to relearn a lot of stuff,
it probably has all kinds of limitations because it's quite new... by the
time you have learned it others will have made like 10 websites already with
existing tools, the .net changes is like a never ending story.

When will you be done learning and finally getting something done for a
change ? The irony in that sentence :)

Stability is good, change is bad, a little bit of change is good, something
which is weird for microsoft.

I don't blame microsoft, microsoft wants to advence technology at an
incredible rate, a rate which is too fast for my taste and probably most
people that just want to get something done.

There gui designer are still incredibly lacking compared to the competition.

Something which should have been very basic by now.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Hmm,

Maybe I was too quick with my analysis of Netbeans.

The labels and pulldown works ok, but the button is already malfunctioning
and the textarea also malfunction and was not placed where I wanted it to be
placed.

Maybe "the web" is the worst invention ever invented for writing software
for. It wasn't ment to do what people want it to do today :)

Let's assume that netbeans is crap as well, then that leaves no real
alternative to develop a website with what you see is what you get with code
behind it.

Kinda disappointing.

Maybe I should advice my sister to take a hike, pay xxxx euro's for a web
company which does know (?) how to develop websites, which does have the
correct tools and know how and experience and such.

But somehow I doubt they will do a good job or will be cheap.

It's probably gonna be major/big expensive.

One possibility might be to use the html generated by Intraweb which seems
to do it best at the moment and simply use that in a cgi application.

So then I can use intraweb's easy designer and use it's html output for a
cgi application.

With added benefit that it can all be done from Delphi IDE.

Another possibility might be to give DreamWeaver a try and maybe use that to
make a beautifull well placed website and then use it's html generated in a
cgi application.

However the drawback of cgi application is cutting and pasting of html all
the time when changes need to be made to the gui, so it's not really a good
possibility it just takes too much time.

If I had to make the same application in Delphi for Win32 I would be done by
now garantueed.

I would have developed that application in like maybe one day, at least my
simple demo.

But ofcourse a standalone app doesn't do the same things as a web apps does.

The stand alone app would need to communicate with a server somewhere else.

It would need to be secured.

That's where other servers come in... maybe communicate via tcp... maybe
communicatie with a http server and some form of simple web app or cgi which
simply excepts certain commands.

But then I am back to square one again. Having to make the cgi... well at
least the gui stuff is then not necessary.

I did think about a last possiblity:

Maybe develop a web development method myself.

The easy idea is:

1. Develop a website/webgui with a good web designing tool.

2. Place special tags inside the controls or html.

3. Write a replace tool which simply replaces the special tags with code to
be executed, that would be too difficult because compiler/pascal code would
need to be copy and pasted that would get messy.

So a better alternative would be an insertion point for data....

The replacer need to replace the tags with the data from the
sql/queries/logic etc.

So future investigation will probably be:

1. Find a pirate for dreamweaver if it's not free, try dreamweaver.

2. Try placing special "tags" inside the gui controls.

3. Try replacing those special tags.

This could actually be pretty simple if the gui doesn't have to scale.

Say you need a grid with 5 by 5 rows or columns or so that can be setup
statically and the tags can simply be placed in there.

If the gui has to scale... like more rows and more columns... that things
will get difficult because of each data extra tags have to be added.

Maybe this is an idea for future research for people that can write parsers:

Instead of creating gui controls and markup languages.

Integrate the markup languages into the data types so that programmers can
describe how data fields are to be displayed.

Maybe something like/I'll give it a try:


TmyRecord = record
Label: 'FirstName' Edit: Content of String
mFirstName : string;

Label: 'LastName' Edit: LastName
mLastName : string;

Label: 'HairColor' PullDownList: 'some strings here'.
HairColor : string
end;

Oh well.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Hmm,

I also tried a grid layout in NetBeans and placed the buttons inside it, but
the buttons still resize weirdly.

Not very newb friendly it seems, and the buttons look ugly too.

Bye,
Skybuck.

Well, instead of wasting more time on other tools, I took a quick look at
some dreamweaver tutorials, they didn't seem very impressive just design
only, no code handling etc.

I think I am gonna stick with IntraWeb, maybe use some MySQL without DB
aware components since that not possible with the freeware mysql component,
and then I need to figure out how to work with intraweb images and intraweb
grids.

So I should be spending my time learning how to work with intraweb, However
Delphi doesn't have integrated intraweb help it seems when I press F1 on say
a IwGrid1 no help is found.

And the windows help is not yet available for download I think... only some
pdf for intraweb... however there is a online html help for intraweb.

Then my sister will get to see a intraweb standlone app... hopefully it will
work on her computer oh wait... that's not possible she doesn't have mysql
server.

Gje... then I am stuck

I can only maybe show her what I already made.

So I can't use mysqlserver now for a demo.

So I'll have to go back to Tquery and whatever it uses... since that was
working.

I need to figure out what causes the out of memory weird failure and then I
might just get a good enough demo to show my sister and then she can decide
if she wants to continue and buy/spent some money on buying an intraweb
license, so I can finally develop an ISAPI dll, which will be a little step
forward.

Yeah... as a matter of fact If I do manage to solve the memory problem then
I can just continue using db aware components as well I dont need
mysqlserver even...

Maybe I could use some other database and maybe some web hosting company has
like interbase support or whatever does work with db aware components and
such and can be simply deployed and such.

Yeah this one damn memory problem which is very common according to google
is seriously halting my progress:

"Insufficient memory for this operation. Alias: SomeDatabase."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Bye,
Skybuck.

FINALLY.

I found this fucking program which is supposed to solve the fucking problem.

It's not located in the fucking delphi\bin folder.

NO SIR.

It's fucking located somewhere fucking else:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Borland Shared 7\BDE

FUCK THAT.

Place all fucking programs in the same fucking folder next time, makes it
easier to find stuff.

Instead of some wacky common files shit.

Oh well, maybe the common files shit is for deployed shit, so that deployed
people maintainers can fuck with it too hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Bye,
Skybuck.

"Skybuck Flying" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:89d0e$47851e84$541983fa$1961@cache4.tilbu1.nb .home.nl...
> FINALLY.
>
> I found this fucking program which is supposed to solve the fucking
> problem.

(BDEADMIN.EXE)

>
> It's not located in the fucking delphi\bin folder.
>
> NO SIR.
>
> It's fucking located somewhere fucking else:
>
> C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Borland Shared 7\BDE
>
> FUCK THAT.
>
> Place all fucking programs in the same fucking folder next time, makes it
> easier to find stuff.
>
> Instead of some wacky common files shit.
>
> Oh well, maybe the common files shit is for deployed shit, so that
> deployed people maintainers can fuck with it too
> hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
>
> Bye,
> Skybuck.
>

Hmm,

I already changed the memory pool via the windows tool.

Maybe the alias or maybe the app was still using some old settings or maybe
a reboot was needed or maybe something else fixed it.

Because right now it seems to be working again or maybe it was because I
removed a query or something.

Well for now it's working again. If I get the memory problem again at least
now I found the BDEADMIN tool so I can try it out.

:oO

Bye,
Skybuck.

On Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:55:57 -0800, Skybuck Flying <spam@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Hmm,
>
> Maybe I was too quick with my analysis of Netbeans.

If you must talk to yourself on a newsgroup, please at least do it in just
one newsgroup.

The cross-posting is excessive, even for the first message but especially
for your soliloquy.

Skybuck Flying wrote:
> Let's assume that netbeans [sic] is crap as well, then that leaves no real
> alternative to develop a website with what you see is what you get with code
> behind it.

Let's not assume that, since it isn't.

--
Lew

Skybuck Flying wrote:
> FINALLY.
>
> I found this f**king program which is supposed to solve the f**king problem.
>
> It's not located in the f**king delphi\bin folder.
>
> NO SIR.
>
> It's f**king located somewhere f**king else:
>
> C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Borland Shared 7\BDE
>
> F**K THAT.
>
> Place all f**king programs in the same f**king folder next time, makes it
> easier to find stuff.
>
> Instead of some wacky common files sh*t.
>
> Oh well, maybe the common files sh*t is for deployed sh*t, so that deployed
> people maintainers can f**k with it too hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

You kiss your mother with that mouth?

--
Lew