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Web developer or software developer

Tell me your opinion about these topics.

1. who has more bright future, who can make more money , A web developer or a software developer????(i heard that php developer are much demanded)

2. which are web development languages and which are software development languages.????

3. web development languages are easy or software development languages????

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Reply 1
I think the distinction between the two could soon become irrelevant. There's already plenty of web based applications, I expect that's a trend that will continue. And developing iOS or Android apps is probably fairly similar to web development anyway (depending on the nature of the app). A lot of the non-games apps I have are basically versions of various web sites.
Reply 2
1- There's no clear cut between web devs and soft devs. Not as clear as it used to be. Although I guess there's a bit of a demand for web devs, now that the internet is super saturated and everything has to be improved all the time. Software devs are still very much in demand.

2- Web dev programmes can run on any language that is w3 compliant. PHP seems to be popular because it's widely used in CMSs.

3- Again, PHP. For software dev, there's a much wider range. Most people start off with things like C and Java purely because they're dominant and you can do a lot with them.
As mentioned already the distinction between the two is becoming increasingly blurred, as web based applications become more and more sophisticated.

To answer your questions:

1. This is like asking how long is a piece of string. How much you make will depend on what you are building, and who you are building it for.

2. Some languages like C# and Java are used to develop both web applications and desktop applications.

3. Something like PHP should be fairly easy to pick up compare to say C++, but bare in mind what I said earlier, some languages can be used for both. It is difficult to generalise really.
Reply 4
Well actually i'm totally new in programming and but i love IT and Computer field i'm working just as data entry operator in local company that is okay for now , until i got a good job. So i want to choose a computer field to get started there are so many fields like computer administrator, Software developer , Web developer ETC. As i have no experience of any of these categories so i searched on internet and i found that Programming is best for me cause it has a future, well i'm fast learner mostly i learn computer skills so fast as i think. So i want to choose on of these two categoris .
Software developer or web developer
As till now i have no experince of above these categories. To my information of few days i got that web developing is little bit easy and demanding languages than software developing but software developing has more wages than web developing. So now i'm confused which one i should i choose????????????????
Reply 5
I'm a PHP Developer, but the language I started with was Java and I still code in Java and other languages in my spare time. A lot of people, like myself can develop desktop and web applications.. As others are saying, it's not clear cut.
Reply 6
Original post by evaalice9
Well actually i'm totally new in programming and but i love IT and Computer field i'm working just as data entry operator in local company that is okay for now , until i got a good job. So i want to choose a computer field to get started there are so many fields like computer administrator, Software developer , Web developer ETC. As i have no experience of any of these categories so i searched on internet and i found that Programming is best for me cause it has a future, well i'm fast learner mostly i learn computer skills so fast as i think. So i want to choose on of these two categoris .
Software developer or web developer
As till now i have no experince of above these categories. To my information of few days i got that web developing is little bit easy and demanding languages than software developing but software developing has more wages than web developing. So now i'm confused which one i should i choose????????????????


You need to choose what you want to develop.

Do you want to develop business applications? Hardware? Drivers? Web sites?

The two are generally interchangeable. The reason is because one you know one language, you generally understand programming concepts and then to learn another language it is a change of syntax.
Reply 7
Original post by evaalice9
Well actually i'm totally new in programming and but i love IT and Computer field i'm working just as data entry operator in local company that is okay for now , until i got a good job. So i want to choose a computer field to get started there are so many fields like computer administrator, Software developer , Web developer ETC. As i have no experience of any of these categories so i searched on internet and i found that Programming is best for me cause it has a future, well i'm fast learner mostly i learn computer skills so fast as i think. So i want to choose on of these two categoris .
Software developer or web developer
As till now i have no experince of above these categories. To my information of few days i got that web developing is little bit easy and demanding languages than software developing but software developing has more wages than web developing. So now i'm confused which one i should i choose????????????????


Web applications are software. Web developers are software developers.
Reply 8
Original post by evaalice9
Tell me your opinion about these topics.

1. who has more bright future, who can make more money , A web developer or a software developer????(i heard that php developer are much demanded)

Generally software developers. Php devs hit a much lower ceiling. Just go take a look at jobsites, java devs may earn as much as 30-40k more than PHP devs.

(psst. I know some java devs on 70k)

Original post by evaalice9

3. web development languages are easy or software development languages????

Depends what you do with it. Generally web dev languages are used to dynamically generate some markup, which isn't considered difficult at all.

Software development languages can be more difficult. These are generally used for business logic, so do expect more algorithms, architecture, multi-threading, graphics, etc.
Reply 9
Original post by NX172
Generally software developers. Php devs hit a much lower ceiling. Just go take a look at jobsites, java devs may earn as much as 30-40k more than PHP devs.

(psst. I know some java devs on 70k)


Depends what you do with it. Generally web dev languages are used to dynamically generate some markup, which isn't considered difficult at all.

Software development languages can be more difficult. These are generally used for business logic, so do expect more algorithms, architecture, multi-threading, graphics, etc.


Your perception of web development is about 15 years out of date.
Reply 10
Original post by Planto
Your perception of web development is about 15 years out of date.


Please enlighten me.
Reply 11
neither

these are both very unexciting careers.
Original post by noobynoo
neither

these are both very unexciting careers.


And your opinion was wanted because....
Reply 13
Original post by NX172
Please enlighten me.


To say a web app's purpose is to dynamically generate HTML is akin to saying a C++ program's job is to dynamically generate screen pixels. Both are true, but also massive trivialisations into what actually goes into those respective jobs.

The web has changed a hell of a lot in the last decade. It's not enough to generate a load of HTML, there's some serious engineering needed on both the front and backends to make things work, and to make them work fast. Speed is so important on the web, far more than it is in most software projects. More to the point it's not enough to simply know one language, you need to be able to work with CSS, JavaScript and all the rest, and be able to make them run efficiently as well. Definitely not an easy task.

Regarding the payment ceiling, check again in 20 years and chances are things will be looking rather different. Older languages always end up attracting higher salaries because the demand for devs exceeds the supply. PHP being such a new langage, it's pretty damn easy to find a developer for. For Java it's a bit harder, and for languages like COBOL it becomes near impossible. Hence the pay grades for those three languages will differ quite greatly.
Reply 14
Original post by Dez
To say a web app's purpose is to dynamically generate HTML is akin to saying a C++ program's job is to dynamically generate screen pixels. Both are true, but also massive trivialisations into what actually goes into those respective jobs.

The web has changed a hell of a lot in the last decade. It's not enough to generate a load of HTML, there's some serious engineering needed on both the front and backends to make things work, and to make them work fast. Speed is so important on the web, far more than it is in most software projects. More to the point it's not enough to simply know one language, you need to be able to work with CSS, JavaScript and all the rest, and be able to make them run efficiently as well. Definitely not an easy task.


Not to mention that it's also now very common for business logic and web app development to be bundled into the same project, so the people implementing the "algorithms and architecture" quite often are the same people who are "just dynamically generating some markup."
Reply 15
Original post by evaalice9
Tell me your opinion about these topics.

1. who has more bright future, who can make more money , A web developer or a software developer????(i heard that php developer are much demanded)

2. which are web development languages and which are software development languages.????

3. web development languages are easy or software development languages????


The future of employment is more about having a broad set of skills than to decide for yourself "I want to be this or that", even if many employers, especially large ones, are planning to train specialists. The ability to adapt to the market is what matters. Therefore, in many ways, it is better to be both a web developer and a desktop/mobile software developer. It is about what these two roles have in common that will provide you a bright future. As you learn what they have in common, you will gain the confidence to be highly skilled at being both.

Understanding the creativity entailed in both web development and in desktop software development is crucial. From my experience, it is having the insight about what a user of a website or desktop/mobile software needs that is most important. If you are able to work to that end, then you should do well in either route.

If you enable yourself to understand the general practices of coding in terms of building a "Hello World" website or desktop/mobile software application, and can move on to conditionals, loops, object-oriented programming, interfaces, and modularity in general (important for knowing how to work with software development kits or web content management systems like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.), that is part of what is beneficial, whether you choose website development or desktop/mobile software development.

If you enable yourself to review any website or desktop/mobile application and be able to say, "if I work hard enough, I can make that," that is when, in my opinion, you will have reached the point when you can view both web and desktop/mobile software development as simply what it should be viewed as: problem solving. The market, in my opinion, wants problem solvers at a minimum.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 16
Original post by evaalice9
Tell me your opinion about these topics.

1. who has more bright future, who can make more money , A web developer or a software developer????(i heard that php developer are much demanded)

2. which are web development languages and which are software development languages.????

3. web development languages are easy or software development languages????


1. The money really depends on the company and demand for job, not to mention the level of the position.

both have bright futures though always important to remember, web and mobile technologies are on the rise due to smartphones and tablets, this means you might want to look at app developing too, and web dev is safe with those providing you can optimize for mobile devices (usualy taught in education or workplace/courses etc)

2. The company I work in atm uses ASPX in visual studio with some C# for the desktop side of things and SQL instead of access, Im currently on support for the web systems and am being trained in the asp! (I only knew java and vb.net before)

Somin to consider there ASPX is web for microsoft language which is good cos it gives option to use in visual studio, I duno about you but im a fan, mainly for the integration with other microsoft based codes.

3. I dont think any is easier than the other, they differ but I dont think one is MORE harder than another, if I was starting again id go down java/python route and then learn C# if I wanted to go into microsoft languages but thats just me

My arguement for java is its vastly more taught and popular, has a large portion of the smartphone app market and

Raspberry PI! lol great fun xD

Source: works in the IT industry

Hope this helps!
Reply 17
To say a web app's purpose is to dynamically generate HTML

Who said this? This is a different topic altogether.

I said web development languages are typically used to generate the relevant markup to a user. Not the entire application.

I think the issue here is, people look at a web page or a mobile app and instantly assume this is all 'web dev' and automatically snowball display logic with business logic into this job role and accredit all blessings of web applications to them. This is especially common amongst amateur programmers where they are only writing standalone, small sized apps and haven't gotten to the point where they are writing scalable applications. This only reinforces the fact that modern cloud computing is doing its job in abstracting away services from the presentation layer and most people don't see any difference.

Let's look at an example to clear up this distinction. Take, SaaS (Software as a Service) for instance, one of the most common architectures used today for web applications.

In REST, the 'Software Developers', will write the services necessary and expose them via API. This contains the business logic and DAOs necessary to access resources stored in the database(s). So in layman's terms, this is the core of the software responsible for your business logic and management of your data. Such as logging in, saving profile information, etc...

Now, let's say you wish to deliver your application through several display mediums, say, a mobile device, Ipad, browser AND electronic point of sale. Now thanks to the software devs, you have a shiny API for your application and you are ready to start using the API and start developing on any of said devices. The 'web developers' will work on the display logic for these devices, that is, by using this API call, for example, using PHP I'm getting XML|JSON|etc back from the services, then I'm going to display it to the user in a meaningful way, using markup such as HTML, CSS or jQuery. OR, via a mobile interface, which could be done in C# or Java, for example.

Typical call stack of a SaaS based application, take facebook-like application for example. Developer role in brackets.

-- Presentation Tier--
1. User login screen on a mobile application (web dev / software dev) or browser screen (web dev)
2. User login screen takes the user login and password and with the relevant API call, makes a request to the login server. (web dev)

-- Services Tier --
3. Web server receives this request and forwards it to say, a web container such as tomcat. (software architect / technical operations)
4. Tomcat receives this request, parses the request and makes sense of it. Then goes to the database to see if this data is valid. (software dev)
5. Data is valid, so the service sends a response to the client.

-- Back to Presentation Tier --
6. Receive the response, display success message on screen and redirect to home page. (web dev)
7. Make an API call to getFriendsOnline(), getNewNotifications, getUnreadFeeds(). (web dev)
8. Go to services tier and repeat.

So, yes, there is /some/ overlap where the web devs could be doing 'software dev'. However, more often , this is usually display logic rather than any actual processing.

However, you'll find most jobs are either software dev or web dev, as companies prefer specialists rather than jack of all trades.

Hope this distinction makes the 2 job roles clear. Although if anyone actually bothered to google jobs for Web and software devs, you'll see the difference anyway.

Source: Cloud based Software Developer with 7 year background in Web Development.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 18
Original post by NX172
...


I write .net applications for enterprise-level, global businesses, which roll out multilingual sites, including everything from DAL and business layers to integration with third-party applications and large-scale, commercial CMS integration (necessary when you have hundreds of localized websites running under the same application) and server-side presentation layers (WebForms, ASP.Net MVC etc.). What I don't really do is front-end.

My job title is 'Web Developer'.

Unless you're a global conglomerate with a dedicated software arm, I'm not sure in what situation you would find a developer who can only write presentation logic. Frankly, I'd say someone who only writes presentation layers and can't write a service/DAO is pretty useless and, conversely, someone who can write a service/DAO and can't write a web app is more or less non-existent. HTTP is really not an esoteric concept.

The only distinction I can see is a web developer that doesn't have a solid grasp of software architectures, but that doesn't make them "not a software developer," it just makes them not a very good one.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Planto
I write .net applications for enterprise-level, global businesses, which roll out multilingual sites, including everything from DAL and business layers, integration with third-party applications and large-scale, commercial CMS integration (necessary when you have hundreds of localized websites running under the same application) and server-side presentation layers (WebForms, ASP.Net MVC etc.). What I don't really do is front-end.

My job title is 'Web Developer'.

Unless you're a global conglomerate with a dedicated software arm, I'm not sure in what situation you would find a developer who can only write presentation logic. Frankly, I'd say someone who only writes presentation layers and can't write a service/DAO is pretty useless and, conversely, someone who can write a service/DAO and can't write a web app is more or less non-existent. HTTP is really not an esoteric concept.

The only distinction I can see is a web developer that doesn't have a solid grasp of software architectures, but that doesn't make them "not a software developer," it just makes them not a very good one.


Sounds very similar to what I am doing :smile:.
So yes, anyone who is saying web developers just do the front end are talking out of their rear (which is why at the company I work for, the job title is just "Developer").

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