Jason Knight

The less code you use, the less there is to break

Dec 17, 2017

First thing I'd suggest is ditching the idiotic code bloat and pointless crypticness that is jQuery.

<broken record> If you bother learning vanilla JavaScript FIRST you will quickly find that 99%+ of what is done with jQuery falls into one of three categories: 1. Stuff that can be done in less code without the framework 2. Stuff that's HTML or CSS' job and has no business in the scripting 3. Stuff that has no business on a website -- or even an application -- in the first place! </broken>

A situation only exacerbated by the simple fact that jQuery promotes sloppy coding like repeatedly grabbing the same elements via selector, not ACTUALLY hooking the elements but instead their garbage wrapper object, and of course schlepping along with innerHTML style methodologies like we still care about Nyetscape 4.

Which of course is why the majority of stuff people do with jQuery doesn't even WORK if you are deploying a website under the CSP.

If you bother learning to use JavaScript, HTML, and CSS correctly you will quickly realize just how idiotic ALL the various frameworks, pre-processors and other such 'tools' truly are; in the majority of cases doing little more than making you the tool. I question the rationality -- hell even the sanity -- of those who use them by choice.

Now, if you're already getting versed in JavaScript a full stack solution based on it -- such as node.js -- could be your easiest option... but the question is will this be a standalone application, or something that is accessed online?

The need for extra crap from python -- and that python is EXTREMELY ill suited for outputting markup makes it an all-around bad choice if you want to use HTML/CSS/JS for the front-end. I'm not a fan of the language to begin with, and that stems from it being extremely ill suited to any practical task... NOT that it prevents people from trying.

IF you're going to work server-client as a website, I'd be pointing you at PHP -- for the simple reason that you don't have to micromanage your own hosting to use it. Python and node.js are cute, but try finding a managed webhost that will even LET YOU run it! For someone like me who can just grab a blank unmanaged VPS, install my choice of OS however the hell I want it's a non-issue, but MOST people starting out aren't ready to set up their own hosting from scratch, something that if you want node.js or python on the back-end you are likely going to be stuck having to do... you ask most managed hosts for anything other than PHP, they'll typically say "no we don't allow that" without further explanation.

Though that's why I consider learning to manage your own hosting be it a dedicated server or a VPS is important. The tutorials for "perfect server" over on howToForge being a great start!

However if this is to be a full stack application without an online client-server relationship, sticking with just JavaScript becomes much more viable thanks to solutions like nw.js or electron. I prefer the latter:

electronjs.org

They are basically just node.js with a Blink rendering instance running atop them, giving you a proper 'view' component where you can fully leverage HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create your UI. Almost like a browser in reverse.

Personally I feel electron is better implemented, documented, and is more actively developed than nw.js since it exists to support their larger project, the atom editor. To this end the result is so good that even Microsoft eschewed their own engines, runtimes, and languages to use it to create their "Visual Studio Code" editor.

You know they're onto something when it was good enough to make Microsoft go "You know what? F**k .NET and UWP!" -- the real laugh being UWP can do full stack JavaScript crapplets, so what does that say about it?

Bottom line, I think we need a better picture of what TYPE of system this is going to be -- are you talking about a website? A standalone application? A hybrid?

But even so, skip the frameworks until you know enough about the underlying languages to know if you're being packed full of manure over if they are ACTUALLY any easier or not. Dimes to dollars you do so, you'll quickly recognize idiocy like jQuery for the moronic halfwit inept BS that it is.

Hi Jason,

I really need to go through your post a couple of times, but answering your main question: I want this to be a browser-based web app, not standalone desktop app. So electron is not an option here (I assume?)

And actually from my current knowledge all I need server-side for is to save a piece of information that I will put into my Journal to file on the server/database. All the above seems to be like a 0,0001% of any server-side language capabilities.

Regarding calculations: in my case I will be putting things like: stock name (ticker) open price, target price, close price etc. And need a scripting language to calculate things like: profit/loss based on Long/Short parameter, initial and final Risk-Reward ratio, Average winning/losing trade, amount of long/short winners etc. Additionally a couple of graphs to represent the data.

It can be done in Javascript, but is it any better to use server-side language? NO IDEA...

The main part of the journal in excel looks pretty much like this: tackletrading.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Tack…

How I imagine the app functionality will look like:

I want to register a transaction, for example I bought 100 shares of ABC company for 10$/each. My Stop Loss is at the level of 9$, my target price is 15$/stock.
I put all the above and system calculates things like Risk in $, Risk-Reward ratio (1:5), commission etc.
The above informations are recorded in database or file (good question, does it have to be on the server?)
after 100 of such trades I will gather some date to be represented in forms of graphs, I will be able to calculate future expectancy/trade and so on.

I like the idea of not using Frameworks for a couple of reasons: 1. for they are still black magic, 2. I don't want to overcomplicate things

jQuery, I fully agree that it's not very elegant solution, more like a duck tape, but can be really helpful for a beginner, maybe some portion of the code (more possibly the entire app) will need to be rewritten in the future.

Actually I was a bit shocked that I have to create my own server in node.js (sorry if that's not precise description, I'm still learning) and look through hundreds of modules via npm before I even start to work. I'd love to dive into it, but it actually is more intimidating than I expected.

PHP is not something I'd like to dive into, I know the majority of websites are using it and will need to be maintained for many more years but I'm under impression that it's not gonna be the language of the future somehow. Again, maybe I'm wrong here...

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