For the last few days I've been thinking of jumping on the node.js bandwagon for my world building app. My reasoning is that I've been thinking about creating a rich web UI so that means using a lot of JavaScript.
node.js for those who don't know is a framework for developing server side applications in JavaScript. It's exploded in popularity and with good reason: it's very fast and it allows developers to use the same language on the front and backend of a web application.
The problem for me is that I don't like JavaScript and never have. Still I decided to give it a go and while I liked how well it performed I ran into version issues using it with Ubuntu 14.04. That's not node's fault; it's a problem with Ubuntu not keeping its packages as current as a rolling release distro like ArchLinux.
Did I mention that I dislike JavaScript too!
I know I'm a stick in the mud, but I actually like PHP, and it's undergone a renaissance. it's ubiquitous, easy to deploy and it's a very flexible language.
I still like the idea of creating a web ui for my world building app but there's nothing wrong with coupling PHP to a JavaScript front end toolkit like jquery.
I've got some new ideas on how I want to develop and use my app and I'll share them in a later post.