My Thoughts: Learning Linux is hard (from Microsoft products) but worth the price?

The amount of information that is purely leaking out of my head as I write this article is just ridiculous. I just finished configuring Django/Python, Debian, Apache, MariaDb (after PostgreSQL), Google Cloud, PuTTY, DBeaver, Eclipse, and Git from scratch (no knowledge). That experience was so very tedious.

If I were to do this again, I would have learned Java and MySql first. The rest are fine. The biggest hurdles was reading documentations for MariaDb which some doubles from MySql. This worked for the most part, but in some rarer instances, MariaDb has kind of split from MySql. So, I spent a lot of time following directions that didn't work. Django was an added layer too because I was not sure if it was Django configuration or an Apache configuration. I think by going with Java and MySql, I would have one less layer of technology to figure out where my problem was.

Another hurdle was that I was working of a Windows system while configuring these technologies on Google Cloud. Of course, I also went with Debian without the GUI so I had to learn all the terminal commands. I did not setup a comparable environment on my machine so I had to upload to Google Cloud to test things. This of course meant that I had to figure out how to connect PuTTY and DBeaver to Google Cloud.

Visual Studio may be a good alternative to Eclipse and DBeaver. That I am not sure would have been easier or not. From my experience most people in this tech stack typically use Eclipse. I am not so sure about DB IDE.

Compared to my experience with Microsoft products, this was much much harder than learning MS products. Wizards, tutorials, how-to instructions, etc. were all levels easier to focus on the configurations that needed to be changed. MS definitely got my up, running, and programming within the same day. This took me about 3 weeks only weekends and some nights, so maybe equivalent to 10 days of actual work. Either case, way longer than it took for MS. Maybe this is a sign of my age...

As for pure learning curve goes, MS is way easier and faster.

As for performance, empty shells of a project is already way faster than empty MS projects.

As for price, MS is way too expensive.

In conclusion, there are pros and cons to both. As a person that wants to make decent wage to effort, learning non-MS product is worth the price as they are paid more in general for similar jobs. Good MS developers can still be paid well in higher tiers but there are fewer available openings and more lower quality developers vying for the same role plus managers who cannot recognize good talent.

Coding: Error running Eclipse with 32-bit Java

I get this error because I had Java 32-bit running and a 64-bit version was needed.

Java was started but returned exit code=13

C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javaw.exe

-Xms40m

-Xmx512m

-XX:MaxPermSize=256m

-jar C:\Program Files\Eclipse-SDK-4.2-win32-x86_64\eclipse\\plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.30v20120522-1813.jar

-os win32

-ws win32

-arch x86_64

-showsplash C:\Program Files\Eclipse-SDK-4.2-win32-x86_64\eclipse\\plugins\org.eclipse.platform_4.2.0.v201206081400\splash.bmp

-launcher C:\Program Files\Eclipse-SDK-4.2-win32-x86_64\eclipse\eclipse.exe

-name Eclipse

--launcher.library C:\Program Files\Eclipse-SDK-4.2-win32-x86_64\eclipse\\plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_64_1.1.200.v201205221813\eclipse_1503.dll

-startup C:\Program Files\Eclipse-SDK-4.2-win32-x86_64\eclipse\\plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.30v20120522-1813.jar

--launcher.overrideVmargs

-exitdata 1e30_5c

-vm C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javaw.exe

-vmargs

-Xms40m

-Xmx512m

-XX:MaxPermSize=256m

-jar C:\Program Files\Eclipse-SDK-4.2-win32-x86_64\eclipse\\plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.30v20120522-1813.jar

I had Eclipse and Java installed a long while back, and was pretty sure that Eclipse was working before distracted by other projects. Coming back to it to work with Google Apps, I received the above error. After some trial-and-error, I finally found a post that it may have to do with the Java version. I had to download the 64-bit version. I am not sure why I thought Eclipse had worked before. Whatever I had thought, the 64-bit version of Java fixed this above error.

Ubuntu: Day 7 - Hello World! with Python, Django, and Eclipse Completed

I still do not have a full grasp of Eclipse, but I finally got to start programming in Python and publishing a Python Django site. A very simple "Hello World" page but this should basically be the last major barrier to starting the web application. Although it took me about a week, I probably put in about 16 hours of reading, preparing, installing, and learning some very basic stuff including Linux so I think I did a decent job of getting started.

Ubuntu Eclipse

My experience with the install was a little disappointing. I am still not quite sure what I did wrong the first time through. It may have to do with Django not being compatible with Python 3, but the article I read was rather old. I figured it would be by now. I could probably read up on that, but this just adds more complexity to the users who just wants to get something up and running.

Microsoft Visual Studio builds practically all the starting files so that you could run the application right after creating the project. I thought it was much easier to figure out which files I had to update without watching tutorials.

Keyboard Shortcuts

I am also having issues with the keyboard shortcuts. I dislike that I have to go to the bottom window to end the virtual web server, then go back to the top to restart. I found a keyboard shortcut, CTRL+F2, that should end when debugging. I am not quite sure what it means by debugging but I couldn't find option that says to just stop whenever. I am assuming that setting is what is preventing it to work even when I tried to run in debug mode (at least I think I was from clicking on the bug button). I can change the shortcut key to other key combinations and CTRL+F2, so it is not another application has some sort of higher priority to the key binding.

Intellisense

This feature is always nice. I probably need to spend some more time familiarizing myself with libraries but there are a lot of functions that I do not think I always need to see. There's a lot of properties or functions that are surrounded by sub-scores like '__someName__' which from what I understand so far are more internal use (but technically available). I think this makes it more difficult to learn some of these classes.

There are also some nuisances in getting the intellisense to pop-up. I still need a bit more experience in how the import portion works. I am not quite sure why I have to reference a library then import a "class" or is it a library(?). Anyhow, I figure I will get more exposure to this as I program a bit more.

Conclusion

I am happy that I've gotten to this point. I do not enjoy having to learn all the little nuances just to get this up and running, but then if this was exactly like VS then I suppose there wouldn't be a need to have Eclipse. I wonder at what point when I feel comfortable to put this on my resume.

I also have noticed that for some reason when I want to type python, I sometimes type pythong instead. I am wondering if this is because it is similar to 'anything.' Anyways, I may occasionally misspell this word in my post so just know that I mean python. Hopefully my muscle memory will correct this soon.

There is at least one big obstacle that I still need to work on which is publish the website to Apache. Currently, running out of Eclipse is sufficient for hobby purposes. I definitely will not be looking into the till later in January at the earliest. I need to give my brain some time to connect a bunch of the new dots.

Ubuntu: Day 6 - Reinstalling Ubuntu, Python, Eclipse, Django, MySql

Spent most of day 6 reinstalling Ubuntu 13.10, then Python 3.2.3, Eclipse 4.3, and Django. I was finally was able to create a project with Django within Eclipse with Python 2.7 but not Python 3.2. I spent some time trying to get that to work but to no avail.

I've been tired the last couple days and have not progressed further in my Linux project yet. I am currently in the process of install MySql which seems to take quite some time to install. (Edited 12/19 - In the middle of the install, it requests for a password for root. For some reason this dialog box does not appear on top of the software center window. Look for the extra icon in the left tray.)

I'm not sure I'll have time tomorrow either to do some shopping and other chores before the holidays. I may have one last evening to work on something before year end. Otherwise, I'll pick this back up in January. I did start reading a book on graph databases in hopes of perhaps looking into MongoDb.



http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/864

Ubuntu: Day 4 & 5 - Broke Ubuntu by Uninstalling Python

Yesterday, I installed Eclipse 3.8 and PyDev.

This morning, I was trying to create a new Django project in Eclipse but kept running into an error, "Django not found." There were several sites that fixed this issue but none fixed mine. I checked that Django was indeed installed and that it was installed in Python 2.7.1. I added the Django folder to Interpreter's PYTHONPATH. None seemed to have fixed the problem.

After a couple hours of resolving the issue, I uninstalled Python and all applications dependent on Python. Of course, I did not realize how many applications were dependent on Python. I reinstalled Python in hopes that it will at least fix the problem with Eclipse (which it did not). I noticed some apps were not working properly like the Software Center, so I rebooted Linux. After I logged in, I just had a blank screen.

I am not exactly sure how to revert back, so I am considering to reinstall Ubuntu. I could use more practice in the installing applications. There were also some questions whether Python was installed in a virtual environment which I was not sure if mine was or not. I do not believe so as I did not install any virtual machines, but perhaps Python has its own method of installing in a contained environment? This is all new so I am only speculating.

Worse comes to worse, I could just start developing a Java application.