Old school app developer looking for some tool guidance

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1

I have designed and built application systems on various platforms for more than 25 years, but none of that is helping me deal with the world of OpenSource. I am teaching myself HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL after a lifetime of mainframes and client server systems. My struggle is not with the languages or concepts, but with the cryptic nature of the implementation of the open source “tools”.

Can anyone point me to some introductory material on open source tools for web development? My initial thought is to use *AMP (WAMP at work and MAMP at home) - this I have a handle on, as I am very familiar with databases and, to a certain extent, web servers, Eclipse (which I have some small experience with), MySQL Workbench (a real data modeler - shades of Erwin!), and git (eGit?). I heard about Homebrew on Jen Simmons podcast and thought “maybe I will need that”, but I don’t even understand the first sentence of the Formula Cookbook - what is FOO? Oh, and I am new to the Mac world (only a year in), after a lifetime on the PC, so I am handicapped by that too.

Anyway - any help on the Open Source and Tool front would be well appreciated.

Most gracious thanks,
Ish

2

Hi iseabail, welcome to the forums.

For years I got along using my remote server, plain old notepad, and a few browsers (IE, NS, Opera and Firefox)

Having a localhost server is a big improvement over needing to FTP every time you tweak.
I use Notepad++ now, much better.
I still test in several browsers, though chrome has replaced NS

I used to have XAMPP but now I have each (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl) installed separately.

BTW - “foo” is only a generic “whatever” same as “bar” and “baz”.

I am just getting used to using Workbench after years of phpMyAdmin, but a db tool is essential even if only the command line.

Other than those basics, I guess an IDE like Netbeans or Eclipse would help.

:blush: uh, what were you asking?