Debating web development toolsets

[Myles Braithwaite]

While where should I start:

> PHP: The defacto web standard?  It seems to be supported everywhere,  
> scales
> well, and has lots of libraries, but can be difficult to maintain  
> and get up
> to speed on.

Ya it is a standard but can get a little annoying, also it is hard to  
apply the experiences
to other projects i.e. GUI development. One major thing I really hate  
about PHP is the fact
there are no namespaces. These are all the functions in php http://www.php.net/quickref.php 
.

> Ruby On Rails: If you believe the marketing hype, it'll do everything
> including walk the dog three times a day with one line of code.  Is  
> this yet
> another web fad, or is RoR something worth pursuing?

I believed in the marketing hype and it made me stupid. When ever I  
had to leave the
RoR environment it took a day to get back up to speed.

I have been playing around with the Camping Framework
http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/camping/ and it has been really cool.  
A nice simple
framework to develop simple websites.

> Java: Difficult to develop with, not widely supported, and high  
> hardware
> requirements.  Overall, sounds like an expensive PITA.  It might be  
> good for
> enterprise-level apps with coders immersed in java for 5+ years, but  
> not
> good for smaller, quicker development-time apps.

Java is nice but it requires allot of experience.

> ASP.NET: Gotta at least look at the MS options.  I know enough of  
> the .NET
> framework that I could probably get up to speed really quickly, and  
> MS does
> a pretty good job of making things easy.  They also do a very bad  
> job of
> making it flexible, scalable, or secure.  Also locks in the platform  
> to
> being MS-only.

ASP.NET isn't really a language but a glorified template language you  
will have
to use C#, J#, C++, IronPython, and VisualBasic. I gave a presentation  
on IronPython
and ASP.NET at PyGTA a while ago:
http://wiki.mylesbraithwaite.com/Presentations/2007/PyGTA-IronPython

> Python: Don't know much about python beyond Mailman.  Looks like a  
> decent
> scripting language, can it do reports and interface mySQL well?

Python is my favorite language of all time. I find it best for web  
development because
of it's status. It can handle the enterprise-level apps and small  
websites.

If you interested I would suggest taking a look at some web frameworks  
like Django,
web.py, and TurboGears.

> Perl: "The Original Web Language" and I know it has a rabid  
> following.  The
> whole world can be built in Perl, but is it the best way to go?

I just started learning Perl to administer some static websites.



It really matters what exactly you are developing. If you are  
developing a simple website
i.e. a blog and some flatpages, I would suggest PHP or Perl. If you  
want a step high than that
I would suggest RoR. If you are doing something a little more  
complicated I would suggest
Python. If you have some money behind you Java and ASP.NET are the way  
to go.

Hope any of that helped, if your coming to TLUG tomorrow we could  
discus further over beer.
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