Leaning web development (php, mySQL, AJAX...)

[Kareem Shehata]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org [mailto:owner-tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org] On Behalf 
> Of Andrew Malcolmson
> Sent: Wednesday 19 December 2007 22:13
> To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org
> Subject: Re: [TLUG]: Leaning web development (php, mySQL, AJAX...)
> 
> 
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:06:09 -0500, "Kareem Shehata"
> <kareem-d+8TeBu5bOew5LPnMra/2Q at public.gmane.org> said:
> ...
> > I'm open to suggestions,
> > but I was thinking along the lines of php and mySQL since 
> I'm already 
> > running a bunch of apps on that platform.
> 
> You may be beyond this now but is running PHP apps a reason 
> to jump into developing in PHP?
> 
> You really owe it to yourself to look at other languages.  
> You're going to be spending a lot of time reading code so 
> you'd better be sure the language you choose 'fits your 
> brain' and your longer term interests. 
> It's nice to get instant results like you can with PHP, but 
> what language will you keep going with?
> 
> You should at least read a few tutorials on Java, Python, and 
> Ruby.  All of these are well-designed general purpose languages.  

That's a really good point, and I have to admit that I haven't considered
this question as much as I probably should.  I'd been trying to plan for the
next project without really having gotten into the details enough.

That said, how do you evaluate these options?  I know what this project will
eventually do: take in a bunch of operational data and spit out nicely
formatted reports.  The DB end to is I know pretty well, it's the makings of
the front end that the customers are eventually going to be using daily that
I know nothing about (or very little, writing simple HTML isn't that hard).
Is there a particular language that's better supported for doing reporting
and web interfaces?

Thanks,

-kms

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