You can't communicate directly with SQL from Angular. You are going to need a server side language to act as a middle man. The choice of which language really depends on what you have experience with. Assuming you are referring to Microsoft's SQL Server, a language like C# offers first class support but I fear the learning curve would be too high if you don't already have experience with it. Since you do know JavaScript, you can try something like NodeJS for your backend and use an npm package like tedious to connect. Does it have to be SQL? You can try something like firebase which is a "backend as a service" meaning you can create your angular apps and write/retrieve information from a database securely. Whats more, one connects directly to it without needing to deal with writing up a bespoke API. There's even a angular module for it. I would recommend going this route if you are uncomfortable with the first approach.

I was literally about to post a link to that article @cecilphillip! Great minds eh? @JanVladimirMostert I've not found BI articles to be particularly "tabloidey" myself, but perhaps I'm just not in the know there. As for finding other sources, there have been rumblings of changes at GH for a bit now, starting with the ousting of their former CEO , community discontent , and numerous articles on respected community sites like Hacker News. I don't necessarily think they are going to go the route of say, Sourceforge , but I think its safe to say they are undergoing some culture changes as they seek to move to the next phase. Its good to keep an eye on the situation since GH hosts like, 95% of our code.

I've given up every vice except for my coffee. Fuel for the code machine!!!!

All of the languages listed will get the job done and done well. I've built API's out in PHP and am playing around with Go (and Rust) on personal projects. In my opinion something like Go is a great choice long term because of its concurrency model and type checking capabilities. I've not used it professionally so I can't recommend it as of now. PHP is... well its kinda weird. Not my favorite to work with but its one of the most popular languages out there for a reason. NodeJS using something like SailsJS or HapiJS allows one to create extremely robust and flexible RESTful API's. I am actively maintaining a few using the former and, while its far from perfect (remember kids, technology is all about trade offs), its a great fit for the most common use cases out there. The biggest downside to Node is the lack of strict type checking, which allows for extremely fast development up front, but then the pace slows down as your application increases in complexity. Libraries like lodash help a bit with type checking functions such as _.isString(myVar); but it mucks up your code quite a bit and makes it harder to read. Typescript is very helpful in this regard but is not always compatible with the tools and frameworks out there that one would want to use. Same goes for something like Babel.

I was a Sublime user for years and then migrated to WebStorm . The autocomplete alone is worth the price of admission. It also offers the best refactoring tools I've come across (no small feat for a dynamic language like JavaScript). The live templates and intelligent syntax highlighting (for say, inline html strings in your JavaScript and whatnot) blow everything else out of the water. It also has literally the only decent NodeJS debugger I've ever used (there are others but they are all basically hacks and sloooooow). Its my daily driver and if you are willing to take the time to learn it, it will save you hours and hours of work. If you don't work in JavaScript, the people that make it (Jetbrains) have a ton of other IDE 's available that probably cover what you are looking for. The nice thing about that is that key commands are the same for all of them (within reason of course). I still use Sublime Text 3 here and there for quick and dirty edits that said.

Well thats a way longer conversation than what would fit into a comment thread. Add me on twitter (@vikingpanicatk) and then send me a DM. I'll send you some stuff. :-)

I've been working with node for quite a while now. If you are familiar with JavaScript and understand how servers work at all you are already halfway there. If not, well you aren't going to get very far with node so hit the books and come back to me. The thing about Node that got me at first was that Node itself is pretty barebones. Thats not to say that you can't write a fully functional application with it, its just that its way way more trouble than you want to get into in its raw form. You'll want to give a look at the various frameworks available. My recommendation is express since its the most popular and has the largest community built around it. They have some good docs for getting the obligatory "hello world" app up and running which is where you should probably start. Besides that I would recommend checking out some online courses. I've used Team Treehouse in the past and found it to be great (its not free but affordable IMO). Heres the link to the nodejs course: https://teamtreehouse.com/library/nodejs-basics If you have questions feel free to get in touch. Always happy to help. Good luck!

The AngularJS team is. Angular was quickly becoming the de facto standard for building web apps (right or wrong) but then they came out with Angular2 which was a complete rewrite with no upgrade path (at the time of the announcement at least). The reaction from the development community was swift and angry . Why would anyone write an Angular 1.x app that was going to be deprecated in less than a year? Writing anything serious in the 2.x codebase was a no go since it was still in the alpha stages. Everyone started looking around for something new. Enter React. The learning curve was way smaller than Angular 1.x and it whomps the competition in terms of performance and scalability. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some Angular and think the 2.0 is a massive improvement. Its still in beta though so its not a good fit for most projects yet. I am just saying that I saw React explode in popularity right after that.

If you are used to Windows/Mac look and feel and want the stability that a more well known distro offers, I would strongly recommend Linux Mint . Its built on top of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS which is rock solid and offers a lot of the same UI concepts of Windows (task bar at the bottom, start menu, etc.). I switched to it as my daily driver last year (from Ubuntu) and have not really had to think about it much since. Its fast, easy, and lets you get on with coding.

I don't have a C++ background but Mongo has first class driver support in pretty much every major language out there. Its also far more flexible than traditional sql (for better or for worse) so you can get up and running quickly. Heres a link to the C++ docs on the mongo site: https://docs.mongodb.org/ecosystem/drivers/cpp/ While you're there, give a look around. Their documentation is quite good and very clear. I think you'll find it very easy to pick up.