i’ve been trying to get into web applications, but...

# getting-started

[Hamza]

i’ve been trying to get into web applications, but ihave found no luck. everything has such a high learning curve
What do you guys recomend?

[Shawn]

are you trying to do some full-stack development? or are you asking about server-side specifically?

[Hamza]

sorry 😅 what’s the difference?

[Shawn]

full stack would include, like. the front and the back end. server-side is the back end.

[Shawn]

not that it’s necessarily such a clear-cut dichotomy, but I figure that’s concise enough for a beginner

[Hamza]

so spring would be full stack, right? I want like a simpler version spring, where i can simply connect frontend and backend together.

[Shawn]

what do you envision that to look like?

[Shawn]

what is “simply [connecting] frontend and backend”

[Hamza]

hmm, im not too sure. having relatively simple ways to create html, or template it, and work with posts/gets? If you understand

[Shawn]

I mean at the core you need a web server to serve rendered templates and run business logic

[Shawn]

many of the simpler server solutions can do that, and the ones that can’t can usually be wired up with a template processor

[Hamza]

i guess. what’s a good starting point for fullstack?

[Shawn]

depends, do you mean like in a practical sense or in a more academic sense? there are probably some books and plenty of screencasts if you’re into that

[Shawn]

otherwise, you can learn spring if you want, or run Spring Boot, Ktor, Javalin, etc to get the backend up and running learn the frontend stuff from there

[Hamza]

any good documentation for javalin?

[Hamza]

the website is ok, but it isn’t too in depth, i still find it difficult to understand what is fully going on

[Shawn]

if you’re really at the outset of building web applications, then Javalin probably isn’t what you want

[Hamza]

oh, okay.

[Shawn]

it’s great for folks who want to hammer out some endpoints and have a decent idea of how they wanna wire things together

[Shawn]

Ktor is in a similar state

[Hamza]

okay, so my first idea was to make a little repository type of system where i can document all the books in my library

[Hamza]

so that is my first goal, and im not sure how to start

[Hamza]

i want it so it has a nice enough ui for others to be able to use as well, and easy enough for me to add/remove items from

[Shawn]

honestly I might even recommend a different language to start out with to get the basics

[Shawn]

Java web frameworks tend to be too enterprise, and the Kotlin stuff tends to be too new to cater to newbies

[Shawn]

conversely, there are countless tutorials for getting up and running with Python and Flask, for example

[Hamza]

hmm, i really, really wanna use kotlin ;/

[Shawn]

you can probably follow along with a Java tutorial if you know Kotlin well enough, but ultimately I don’t think I could really recommend the language for someone literally just starting out

[Shawn]

what you want to do is pretty common and is called a CRUD app - Create Read Update Delete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete

[Hamza]

alright. thanks

[Shawn]

and there plenty of tutorials to build those

[Hamza]

what about good docs for learning spring with kotlin? I only saw one blog post relating to spring with proper kotlin related things

[Shawn]

there’s probably not too many articles about spring+kotlin since it works largely the same as spring+java

[Hamza]

oh, okay

[Shawn]

the framework doesn’t really take advantage of any kotlin-specific features, though there are plugins and adapters to do so

[Shawn]

these are generally intended for people who are separately familiar with spring and kotlin

[Hamza]

i seee

[Hamza]

thanks for your input, shawn!

[Hamza]

god i give up. im so confused where to start. can you lead me to anything? Thanks

[Shawn]

this looks like a pretty comprehensive guide: https://spring.io/guides/tutorials/spring-boot-kotlin/

[Shawn]

it’s maybe a bit overkill, but you’ll likely gain quite a bit of needed perspective regardless

[Hamza]

ok, thansk

[tipsy]

this is exactly why I'm making javalin: https://javalin.io

[tipsy]

i'd be happy to help you get started making an app

[Hamza]

wonderful! I’ll take a look. Thanks

[tipsy]

having read the whole thread now, i see you already found it 🙂

[Hamza]

yeah

[tipsy]

if you let me know which parts you don't understand i can improve the website

[Hamza]

well it gives u tutorials on making apps

[Hamza]

but it doesn’t really explain what is happening

[tipsy]

like how http works?

[tipsy]

the html-form tutorial includes some theory on when to use GET vs POST: https://javalin.io/tutorials/html-forms-example-kotlin

[tipsy]

it's for creating reservations, but that can be easily translated into adding books

[Hamza]

okay

[tipsy]

are you new to programming in general, or just new to web ?

[Hamza]

web

[Hamza]

i have a basic knowledge of kotlin and java, but none in any enterprise

[tipsy]

alright, that can be a challenge

[Hamza]

i really do find it hard

how did you learn?

[tipsy]

a master's degree and four years of work experience in a telecom 😅

[Hamza]

that definitely makes it easier…

[tipsy]

takes a long time though 🙂

[Hamza]

so you know what i know (nothing). i’m commited to use javalin to make my book repository thing. where should i start?

[tipsy]

if you can find a free "bootcamp" course on youtube they can be very effective

[Hamza]

hmm, i prefer docs and the such, videos are not the type for me

[tipsy]

do you know how to setup a maven/gradle project in intellij?

[Hamza]

yeah! I do

[Hamza]

i’ve used tornadofx quite a bit

[Hamza]

i’ve gotten quite good at it, i’d say

[tipsy]

then i would start with cloning the HTML form repository and looking at how it works

[Hamza]

okay!

[tipsy]

i'll be working on javalin for the next hours, so feel free to message me to ask questions