Web or client development?

[Lost User]

Hi everyone, I was recently looking for some job offers and saw that man offers for software developers are in the web field, meaning programming with ASP.NET/JSP/PHP. For me, a programmer how has been programming client applications in C++/C#/Java for over 7 years, I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to jump onto the "web bandwagon" and get and insight into web development. With Web 2.0, AJAX and all that stuff interactive web applications (such like Google Maps, Facebook) become more and more popular and are actually easier to deploy (runs on your browser, must run on the customer's browser, huh? - maybe I'm wrong here). Right now I'm a C# developer programming client-side applications, but I'd like to know if it's advisable to look into technologies like ASP.NET and web development in general. I like the idea, but I'm a bit afraid I'd also have to learn much HTML/CSS/Javascript. What's your point of view on this topic? regards

[codemunch]

I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to jump onto the "web bandwagon" and get and insight into web development

Nah, this web thing is just a fad - don't waste your time.

On an unrelated note, do you have a link to these job offers? :-D

[Jon Sagara]

It sounds like you're seriously considering changing over, so just jump in and start learning. You'll find out soon enough whether or not Web development is the right path for you.

Jon Sagara On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana? -- Mitch Hedberg .NET Blog | Personal Blog | Articles

[keyboard warrior]

i would do what makes you happy :)

[MrPlankton]

Many clients are freak'n paranoid about installing any kind of application on thier networks, especially for test and evaluation. That being the case it is strange to me that any applications are being developed win32/64. My percpective is to do only web applications that can be viewed/demod remotely from the comfort of clients trusty browsers. Your mileage may vary.

MrPlankton

[Todd Smith]

I'm currently doing a web project with some fairly complex AJAX 2.0 plus a mixture of client side hackery and it's quite annoying. But I found client side development in the .NET world to be equally as annoying due to the specific UI toolkit that had been chosen. It was fun for the first month when everything was new and bugs where something I could push off until a later day. But now that I'm in the debug phase and trying to work around all the idiosyncrocies of asp.net web development the fun is fading quick :( Learning raw HTML/CCS/Javascript shouldn't take but a few weeks for someone with 7yrs experience. However, you'll spend then next 10 years learning all of the incompatibilities between browsers in order to write what should be some very simple web code. Best of luck!

Todd Smith

[Rocky Moore]

Yes... The line between web and client is beginning to blur and in the new feature it will probably be erased. When you develop a "web application" it is very much like a typical WinForms client application, however the method of display and input or different and the change over to a Stateless system takes a bit of getting use to in design. Other than that, with .NET web applications are very close. This year, Silverlight 2.0 will be released and it will provide the majority of functionality that WPF has under Windows, but will run in a browser, not only just in a browser but on multiple platforms giving a greater reach to your applications. It will come with all those nice things like databinding and full controls that make data applications quick and easy to build. The HTML/CSS/Javascript stuff is fast becoming secondary though.

Rocky <>< Blog Post: Yahoo! Pumps OpenID! Tech Blog Post: Moving on up with Windows Live stuff and Plus!