How to know what expertise I need?

[Cutwolf]

Hi all,

I've recently come up with what I think is a very viable web based business idea. I have the vision, the strategy, I have several ways to monetize it, etc.

What I don't have, however, is the tech expertise required to build it. Im looking for a technologically oriented cofounder, but the problem is I don't even know what kind of expertise would be needed.

There seem to be so many different programming languages out there that it's pretty overwhelming to someone who doesn't know the difference between CSS and C++.

What's the best way to go about figuring out what my site would need? Is it just a matter of learning as much as I can about the programming languages out there? Is there any site that breaks down the languages by "this can do this and this" and uses real world examples?

Alternatively, if anyone is interested in hearing out my idea through PMs and maybe giving me their thoughts on what kind of programming they think I'd need, that'd be great.

Thanks all!

 

[Hermes Monster]

Very simplistically I would put it like this.

HTML is the main markup language, which will give the website it's overall shape, text, headers and such.

CSS is look and feel and sits over the HTML, telling the HTML elements what colour to be, where to sit, size etc.

C#/C++/.NET etc are things in the background, that deal with data, tell info where to be sent, error handling etc

Javascript/jQuery - they're the cool things, which will tidy up your site, make it smooth and faster - give the nice sliding tabs, hover windows etc and sites between/works with C# and CSS

It depends on what your business website will be doing, if it's just a case of having an internet presence then a designer will make you a nice site with contact details on etc - if you want something like Amazon for example, that will have massive databases, check outs, contact forms etc etc then you also need a web developer.

Hope that helps, like I said that's the very barebones stuff - anyone else feel free to correct me.

 

[Cromulent]

Basically there are three tiers to a website.

The Client Side

This is everything that executes / renders directly in the browser. Currently this only consists of HTML, CSS and Javascript. All of which are essential in terms of experience.

The Server Side

The server side is where the vast majority of website work happens. It consists of taking data sent from a browser or mobile device and storing it in a database and also querying the database and sending the results back to browsers or mobile devices.

It does things such as process the data, sort it, validate it, transform it etc etc.

Popular programming languages in this area are the following: (there are of course others, in fact you can use ANY programming language on the server side)

• Python
• Perl
• PHP
• C#
• Ruby
• Java

The Database Side

This is technically part of the server side but is a complex area in its own right and deserves to be treated as such. You'll be working with databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL. Expertise in one database or another is critical. Don't be fooled by all the talk of NoSQL solutions. A good solid foundation in SQL and set theory is still an essential part of any web developers arsenal.

That is pretty much the basics.

 

[Cutwolf]

Thanks guys!