Has anyone at FCC thought about adding PHP and mySQL to the curriculum?
Are there any beta or alpha challenges in PHP or mySQL?
Why hasn’t something so common and basic as PHP and mySQL been covered by FCC?
No. The curriculum expanded dramatically last month. This was a couple years in the works.
The FCC team has to make judgement calls about what technologies to focus on. They have chosen those that they believe will be the most relevant to the direction that web programming is going.
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I’d love to see them in the future. That was how I got started with web development, by setting up my own database and eventually creating a fully dynamic website. It was awesome.
In the meantime, it’s pretty cheap to get your hands on a virtual server, run Linux, and mess about with your own db and website. I learned a lot.
FCC does go all the way through fully dynamic websites. They just teach a different stack.
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Thanks for your reply.
The reason why I ask is that I am working on a website WindsurfResource.com which is a launch finder that enables a user to find launches and provides information (including photos and pictures) for each launch. I had an expert look at it 5 years ago and they said if they were to approach the project, they would use (in addition to a Google maps API) PHP and MySQL so that the web pages that describe individual launches can be stored in a data base and be dynamically loaded for display. This would also allow for an admin system to be linked to the database for entering and editing locations of individual launches using an interactive system for finding lat/long info for locations and image upload of the photos and pictorial info describing each launch.
My question is: should I (a) use PHP and MySQL to do this, or (b) should I use something more modern (and taught by FCC) such as Node.JS, Mongo, Angular JS?
Usually when somebody tells you what they would use, they will reach for the technology they know.
Your expert is not wrong…PHP and MySQL will work just fine. So will NodeJS and MongoDB. Or Rails and Postgres.
Spend a little time thinking about the stack you want to learn and maybe update your site with that.
When evaluating a stack it is useful to consider:
- what do you already know?
- how steep a learning curve can you stomache?
- what stack is likely to get you a job in your region?
- what community or learning resources exist around the various stacks?
Good luck and happy coding 
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Jackson,
Thanks you for your input.
Would you please be able to brief me how each of (i)PHP/MySQL, ( ii)NodeJS/MongoDB & (iii) Rails/Postres stack up as to numbers (2) & (4) above?
How do each of (i)PHP/MySQL, ( ii)NodeJS/MongoDB & (iii) Rails/Postres compare regarding (2) steepness of learning curve & (4) learning resources available?
Thanks.
It depends on what you already know. Starting from scratch I would say they are all broadly equivalent in terms of learning, more or less.
In terms of resources and community I don’t think you can really beat the JS, Node, Mongo, React (or Vue, or Angular) route. The FreeCodeCamp community is exemplary, and there is no shortage of material outside of fcc to teach you the 100% JS stack. Rails has the Odin Project, but I can’t really comment on how supportive a community it is. PHP etc…You can probably find good support amongst Wordpress devs, but again I can’t comment on them really.
For me, since JS is probably already a bit of a known entity, the 100% JS stack wins, but really it just comes down to what your gut tells you for now and then sticking with it long enough to get productive with it.
NB - those pairings I mentioned are not set in stone. You can have Node paired with an SQL database like Postgres or MySQL etc…those were just reasonably typical pairings.
I would highly recommend going with Node.js and MongoDB if you are looking for serverside script and database you can get up and running quickly. Your experience with the curriculum here through Javascript really flattens out the learning curve since the syntax is much the same.
PHP scripting requires you to set up a local host using WAMP if you want to test your site functionality, which is some additional hassel I dont enjoy dealing with. Node.js comes with this feature built-in. Way more user friendly if you ask me.
That said, if you have an intention in getting involved with well established companies that have massive legacy systems to migrate over to new methods ( there’s money to be had here) take some time later on to learn the basics of PHP. It will help if you’re ever renovating old architecture.
That is all nice, BUT I use Hostmonster.com for WindsurfResource.com, and although the control panel on Hostmonster.com shows lots of support for PHP and SQL, I see no support for MongoDB (See uploaded JPEG image of the hostmonster control panel).
Should I be concerned?
Can I use MongoDB on Hostmonster.com? Or do I need to find another web host, despite the fact that I paid for hosting on Hostmonster til January 2021?
Please advise as to whether I should still use MongoDB/NodeJS/Angular for WindsurfResource.com instead of PHP/MySQL to dynamically load the web pages.
Yeah, so the issue with Node and Mongo or similar is that it’s not going to be something you can install on basic shared hosting unless is actually supports it. You’re tied into the hosting contract you have, imo just ignore the Node advice, it’s not an option. You can use Mongo as an external service, but you already have access to databases that are better, all things considered, than Mongo on your hosting plan so 
Your host supports PHP like everywhere else, and it’s got MySql and Postgres as DB options, and you can install Rails. So unless there are some extra options I can’t see (unlikely), or you want to pay more money, no. It’s shared hosting, and if it doesn’t support Node out of the box you’re limited in your options because you can’t treat it like your own computer and install arbitrary stuff.
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PHP is easy to get going with and will work absolutely fine for what you want. There’ll be a tiny little bit of config, but the key advantage is that you can just upload files and the site will Just Work. You are just putting files in a place the web server can find them and convert from PHP to HTML.
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Alternatively, Rails is great for getting fully featured apps up quickly, and has one of the best tutorials books written for any language. https://www.railstutorial.org/book
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Dan has a good point, if you’re starting from scratch and trying to do local hosting to get everything set up: my preference is Node.js and Mongo. There’s a way to install both products via hostmonster, but the amount of keyboard work to do so might not be worth your time. Even then, they will kill your process after 5 minutes running if you haven’t paid for a dynamic IP address.
@mcca0447 I develop using PHP and would like to point you and others to a free and excellent way to do local development in PHP, and WordPress if you choose. You can select the version of PHP to use on the fly, which is most excellent.
Please have a look at Local by Flywheel. It uses Oracle VirtualBox, and you can add things like Docker, etc…
OK
Thank you for all your feedback.
My web hoster for my website is Hostmonster, but Hostmonster.com is partnered with Bluehost!
Doesn’t Bluehost support MongoDB and NodeJS?
If so, shouldn’t I try to shift my webhosting from HostMonster to Bluehost?
Please advise.