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Ioana Raluca Darie
Ioana Raluca Darie
3,540 Points

Web app

Hello guys,

I work for an insurance company and I was thinking on creating an web app that will help me with all the math calculations and conditions based on customer input.

I was thinking on creating a webpage that will contain a form and based on what the customer will fill there I give him the results ( what he has to pay for the insurance).

The problem is that I do not know what programming language to learn in order to develop that. I imagine I need html and css but what else it will help me with the math calculations and the conditions? It is Java Scrip? or PHp?

3 Answers

William Li
PLUS
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

hi Ioana Raluca Darie

Generally speaking, when a student without prior web dev experience comes to Team Treehouse with the goal to learn how to write web app, we recommend him/her start w/ the FrondEnd Track. This track teaches HTML/CSS/JS from scratch, the knowledge of the trio is cornerstone of building web app, no matter what type of web app you're trying to develop.

After that, you'd want to pickup some knowledge on the backend development track, PHP/Python/Rails/Java are all good choices for backend learning; but I recommend the Full Stack JavaScript track, for obvious reason, one less language to learn, not to mention JavaScript is extremely popular these days for backend development.

Upon completing these 2 tracks, you should have the knowledge required to develop the web app on your mind.

From what I gather from your question, my suggestion would be to learn either node.js or PHP. It sounds like you need to have data in a database and have the set data be compared to the user input. You can use any programming language. If you have experience with JS already I would go with node.js.

Ioana Raluca Darie
Ioana Raluca Darie
3,540 Points

Thank you for your answers. Is true that I will need a database and depending on the customer input I will give him the options /results. I gave myself a 2 months term to have this ready .. but based on what I have to learn sounds pretty difficult to be accomplished. Fingers crossed.

William Li
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

Is true that I will need a database and depending on the customer input I will give him the options /results.

Not neccessarily, if that's ALL you want your web app to do, a static page with HTML/CSS/JS should be fine. No need for database, so FrontEnd Track would take you there.

It's true you don't need a database to complete this. You can use JS arrays to store the hold the data from your clients and then compare that data to another array of your own, and then process the number for your clients. There is a huge reason for having a database for your landing page. I would look up the term personalized ad services. Then take it one step further in your own industry. So in short, think of the value of the data stored in that database of the clients that use your landing page, and how would your company use that data to have a more accurate understanding of there clients.

PS if you did build this you might need your legal team to review it, due to storing financial data, rather than other forms like, age, "likes" email address, and so on.