A Dev Environment for the Returning Geek?

Posted by Cliff on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @04:49AM from the welcome-back dept.

InsurgentGeek asks: "I'm about 25 years into my career in technology. Over that time, I've done the standard progression from developer to architect to team leader to program leader to business unit leader. While I've stayed up to date on general technology trends (perhaps more than about 95% of my peer group) - I have started to really miss hands on coding - something I haven't done for almost 20 years. It's not for my job, and I don't plan to make any money at it - but I'd like to get back to coding on at least a recreational basis. Here's the rub: what are the right tools?" "'Back in the day...' you had about 2-3 choices of languages and perhaps the same number of OS's. There were not frameworks, API's, development environments, etc. I'd like to pick a toolkit and learn it. My goals are pretty simple: I want to write applications that have a great look & feel that will primarily be pulling information from the web (think weather & news), play with that information and present it in interesting ways. I'd like those applications to be usable on the Linux and perhaps Mac OS X platforms. I'm not a complete non-techie. I use Linux at home, have set up all the toys like Squid and BIND - but this is just administration. I need to get back into the guts of the machine. If you were me where would you start? What language(s) would you want to become conversant in? What do I have to worry about beyond the choice of the language itself? What frameworks? What other tools?"

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PARENT IS A TROLL (Re:Plain and simple) by dorkygeek · 2005-12-20 05:08 · Score: -1, Troll

Sorry, but who modded this Interesting?? It's a TROLL in disguise, just have a look at the last sentence of his post!

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Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
Re:I'd say... Java by mtigges · 2005-12-20 05:32 · Score: -1, Troll

Java sucks big ass sweaty donkey balls. I've finally been forced to use it when we started competing for a big military contract, and I can unequivocally say, shedding all preconceived biases aside that I was right. Java is slow, has idiotic limitations, the garbage collection is a PITA, ... If all you want to do is some simple little gui's or whatever, fine. You want to do any real work, stay away, far away.