Have just finished my first web based application using Ruby on Rails. It was fine and I feel like i have a good general understanding of RoR now.
I want to try a different method of web design next but don’t want to start learning outdated methods, I want to stay current.
I understand that different technologies are used to achieve different things, but just want make sure I’m investing my time in something useful.
What are the latest wave of developers using to create their applications? Java? PHP?
Take a look @ node.js. It allows you to code JavaScript on the browser and the server. JavaScript is becoming the defacto web language so it allows you to extend your skills their and share code (very powerful for the browser form and server REST service to share validation and other logic).
Also, many cloud services (Azure, CloudFoundry, Joyent etc…) are hosting it. Alot of folks are onto this web technology (including Microsoft https://github.com/tjanczuk/iisnode – disclaimer: I work for them).
Besides it being new, it also encourages an async non-blocking I/O method of creating network servers which is a good pattern to get your head around.
Some videos to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6k8lTrAE2g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAc0vQCC6UQ
Start @ nodebeginner.org then look @
http://expressjs.com and
http://socket.io
Edit: Recently created this full sample pulling together modern concepts: https://github.com/bryanmacfarlane/quotes-feed