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

[Brandon Sandrowicz]

On 12/22/07, Kareem Shehata <kareem-d+8TeBu5bOew5LPnMra/2Q at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > 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
>

Well, Java & Ruby are both 100% Object-Oriented (IIRC), if that
matters one way or the other for you.  Python has both classes and can
be procedural more like C++ (same w/ PHP).

PHP has everything bundled together so that you have huge function
names like mysql_open_connection_then_do_something().  In Python,
Ruby, and Java you have importable modules so that not everything is
in the same namespace.

Example (python):

import pysqlite3

or

from pysqlite3 import FunctionName

In the first example, you would call pysqlite3.FunctionName() to
access the function, and in the second example you would be able to
just call FunctionName().  The point is that you have a choice to
import something directly into the namespace or keep it separate.  In
PHP, nosomuch.

You could evaluate each of the languages according to what tools there
are in each language.  If you think you want to use Drupal or CakePHP,
go with PHP for example.  Or Ruby for Ruby on Rails.  Or Python for
CherryPy or Django. ( I don't know any examples in Java).

Personally I would stay away for Java when it comes to
web-programming.  There are a lot of large companies that use it, but
if you just plan to do this stuff in your free time it will be easier
to find a host that supports Apache+Ruby/Python/PHP than Tomcat+JSP.
JSP as a web programming language is either for people that already
know Java (or need the web app to access something that already has a
Java interface) or as a job skill to work for larger corporations.

--
Brandon Sandrowicz
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