My First dot com: Idea to Implementation pt2

In my last post I went through my thought processes for my first online business venture. Now I’m going to speak about my implementation process. I wont bore you with any in depth programming and technical details, but rather give you information on the tools I used to implement my website. I will also give you information on viable alternatives to what I used so you can weigh your options and choose wisely.

Web Development

My first dot com has a social networking theme to it. After doing research on similar sites I noted the basic services I should provide along with the back end needed to support such services. Being a software developer myself and a web enthusiast it wasn’t too hard for me to identify what was needed. A basic point of view for a web application, involves a front end and a back end. The front end is what the user sees and interacts with. This is the nice layout and information on your website, well presented to the user. The back end usually involves a database filled with the information you are presenting. We use a programming language or scripting language to communicate between our front end and back end as described in this post.

Programming Language of choice:

My programming language of choice was ruby using the ruby on rails framework. For those of you who may have never heard of ruby before, just check out those two links in the previous sentence for a nice introduction. Although I recommend ruby and ruby on rails for anyone, the persons just starting out would have a nice time with it. It has a much more gradual learning curve for easy and quick development. Additionally ruby and ruby on rails are..FREEEEE. Yes folks, ruby and ruby on rails are open source languages and frameworks respectively. Of course one can argue any language is free and available for use, but not all the tools available to aid in the development are free in most cases. Full Story →