Webdude,
It isn't that hard, until you want to get to the finer points. I
started first by installing MAMP on my mac. It installed just as
advertised and I was able to get my feet wet on my laptop at my leisure.
Then I installed on an old 386 box, Ubuntu version of Linux. I
downloaded it, made a DVD and boom, I was running. Again, as I recall
Ubuntu had it all, installed with no problems and I was able to get
php code I had written on the mac to work. I think Robert is using
some version of Fedora. I don't know that is so great about it, but
who cares when you are just learning and playing in the sandbox? I was
able using Navicat to configure the MySQL db on the Linux box and PHP
was also not a problem. I had one app that I had written in witango,
and I mapped out the business logic on a piece of paper and decided
how I thought it should work. I first got one page to work, an insert,
then another, a select, and then another. an update, all one at a
time. Then I learned about includes and variables. For me the
variables were a bit of a challenge, both in setting them and using
them in display as well as in updates and inserts. But I eventually
got that going, one step at a time. If I had to do it again to day, I
bet I would have to refresh my memory. It wasn't that intuitive for
me. Help from the web, from Robert Garcia in a couple of short
emails. A book suggestion from Ben, read more examples on the web and
again, little by little got it working. I then put some CSS in to make
it look right. That was good.
So a simple app, and little by little it worked. It ran on my mac
laptop and it ran on the LAMP Server. Of course I didn't stress it,
that wasn't the point. I proved to myself I could do it, and if I
wanted to , I would just take it one step at a time, just like Witango
went.
Now there are all kinds of PHP stuff that I am told are so cool, and
free that I still don't have a clue how to implement. At some point,
if I need to , I will slug through it. One thing that is nice, when
you have a select page that works, you start the next one like that
and it does go a bit faster. And at some point, it would be good to
have a mentor who had the time to show you examples. It would go
faster then. I remember how many people on the list did that for me
and witango in the 1.0 days. Eric Weidl and I spent a week I think at
one point at his office in near Chicago. I worked along side of him
and he showed me all kinds of stuff. A huge help. I am sure you can
find someone to help you that way. There are still nice guys around.
I never did the Zend thing. I downloaded it once when Robert told me
to, but it was over my head so I took it off. I wasn't ready. At some
point, I would like to learn about it since Ben and Robert rave about
it.
The point is, that you can do it. I like the advice I got from Scott
Cadillac. Pick a language and just take it one step at a time. The all
have their strong points and week points. He went the .net route and
has made a great living doing that. Robert and Ben have gone PHP and
are making a good living doing that.
I think Witango has done more for you in learning a new language that
you might think. There are lots of things you understand that you will
be able to make connections with. Scott said there isn't a silver
bullet as to which platform. I think he is right. IIS is easier to
administer than Apache in some ways. but once you get Apache set up,
it isn't that hard. Again a little help from someone and you will be
amazed how you understand it.
Starting over again is refreshing, invigorating, keeps you young and
is really quite satisfying. I think Robert Ben and the others who work
with him, got a huge bang out of moving to LAMP. It was a step up for
him in every way and I think it was very satisfying to take the
challenge, solve the problems and make it work. And so it can be for
you. In a few years, you will be really glad you read the tea leaves
and covered your back side. Author Jim Ferrell said, "Children learn
more from watching someone learn, than from watching someone teach."
So go for it. Be bold. We are all watching eagerly and learning by
watching you learn.
Mark Weiss
http://trustthechildren.blogspot.com
On Oct 23, 2008, at 10:47 PM, WebDude wrote:
Janet,
I feel your pain. I have been busy downloading stuff and poking
around. I have read hundreds of pages on just the install stuff for
Apache, MySQL, PHP, ColdFusion, .NET... I even spent a day on
nothing but open source. I have a spare server I have been thinking
of using just to try some stuff out. What is really daunting is the
pages upon pages and gotchyas on just an installation... not to
mention the additional downloads needed to make it work in Windows.
Funny... I have about 60 sites, some getting well more then 100,000
page views per day... well over 1,000,000 visitors per month in all
- all on one MSSQL dedicated server and two dedicated Witango
servers runninng Witango 2000. Never a slowdown and has been rock
solid for over 8 years. 16 e-commerce sites, 2 Data Access
Managements sites, 4 forums, 12 internal employee sites for some
very large corporations, one very large directory site, 2 online
streaming PDF sites and a smattering of... well, just websites. Now
I am losing sleep because I am so worried about what direction to
go. I spent a very large amount on the corporate license thinking
that this was the way to go and have spent much time and resources
in developing all I have going. I never upgraded because of the
20,000 plus I dished out and I remember the days when it was
discussed that the editor would be able to output ASP and possibly
PHP code... but that never happened or was just a pipe dream.
Frankly, I thought it would have been a great idea to port output of
the editor to more popular languages. Anyway... enough crying in my
beer. I went this route and now I am going to have to do something
about it. I just spent most of the day trying to install PHP and
getting the "hello world" to work. Tomorrow, I might try to see if I
can actually connect to a database. This is going to take me a
little while...
-----Original message-----
From: "janet" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:55:41 -0500
To: witango-talk@witango.com
Subject: RE: Witango-Talk: Open Letter to Phil and Sophie
> I was wondering what to say until I saw this email from Webdude
>
> "Well, I have a problem and maybe some of you could help me. I
have been
> using nothing but Tango and Witango since I started developing
many years
> ago"
>
> Yes this is my story also.
> Pretty good at SQL ( MS SQL) triggers, stored procedure, views,
groupings
> , maxvalues etc just a happy place for me, also HTML and Witango.
I found
> that if I had good array results then the Witango stuff was easy.
> So I have looked at other RAD visual products. With ASP.net you
end up with
> blocks of code either in VB or C+, there is s Borland PHP RAD,
Cold fusion
> and Dreamweaver etc. But it seems that the builder tools all
create either
> PHP, VB, C+ or something.
> How come Witango shielded me from all of these languages?
> I know Witango is an XML code generator so why isn't there any other
> products creating XML? I am asking the wrong question?
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Mark Weiss
http://trustthechildren.blogspot.com
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