WHat is it like to have a burning desire to develop systems and applications in 2008 when the last line of computer instruction code you wrote was a LIFETIME ago??? WHat is it like to have a great idea for a web application and be unable to progress it because the world of application development is completely new, foreign and completely obtuse and incomprehensible?
I invite you to join me on a journey of dicovery, some pain, more discovery and snail like progress as I attempt to get something a little more than "Hello World: out of today's system development tools and programming languages.
I think I wrote my last line of COBOL code in about 1984 - back in those days the "best" programmers took great pride in their "Structured programming techniques" - a term made famous by programming "guru" Ed Yourdon et al. To my way of thinking, structured programming was the practice of building programs that were made up of three "structures" - 1 - a sequence of procedures (PERFORM A, PERFORM B...) ,2. an iterative loop (PERFORM UNTIL...) and an "IF THEN ELSE construct.
Programming was sequential, data files were simple - Indesxed or "direct", databases were not really much used and on-line real-time screens were all character based - nothing like the PLETHORA of widegets that are available to todays application developers! No wonder it takes an architect, graphic designer, business analyst, usability analyst and web UI coder just to create one simple application screen!!
AH yes, the COBOL program - how simple it was back then to develop systems... even on-line real-time systems were "easy" - screen design was character based - 80 characters across by 25 lines (rows) - and compared to the graphical user interfaces of today - how simple was it to create screens and systems.
In those days, we had wonderfully simple things called transaction files and masterfiles, and sometimes we had history files, audit files and various forms of reporting files. Data dictionaries were heirarchical and consisted of documentation on files, records and data elements.
I have been on this journey seriously now for about four weeks - sure I have had a number of attempts at developing my own applications with various tools and technicques but I have not until recently, put the bit between my teeth and launched myself into web application development 2008 style.
I have discovered some amazing software aids and tools and I will be mentioning these and doing some reviews along the way... so stay tuned for my next installment in "The journey to web app development capability, 2008 style?
