What would you write this application with?

[DAM]

I am thinking of starting a brand new project and here are some of the features:

[*]Keep track of customers.
[*]Keep track of customer questions.
[*]Keep track of emails with customer.
[*]Keep track of customer FTP accounts.
[*]Automatically update customers that fall within a certain criteria.

Among other things.

What I am asking is this,

if you had to write this on *NIX what language/db would you use and why?
if you had to write this on Windows what language/db would you use and why?

I would like to get some feedback from various backgrounds and see what might be best for this project.

Thanks,

dam()

 

[AFB]

I bet people are going to tell you to use .NET on Windows.

Edit: Have you thought about an intranet web applications?

 

[EagleKeeper]

You need some type of relational database.

What language you use will depend if you are accessing the information from the Web or a dedicated system.

Either choice, you should use the language that you are most comfortable with and document the application heavily.

 

[WannaFly]

it depends: if you want a web based or windows based.

BUT, i would choose .NET because its so easy to go from one type to the other and to share the business logic between the two.

 

[stndn]

web based?
how about php/perl + mysql?
it works for both *nix and win*

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: stndn
web based?
how about php/perl + mysql?
it works for both *nix and win*

Ditto that.

though what eaglekeeper said reigns supreme.


"Either choice, you should use the language that you are most comfortable with and document the application heavily. "

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: eigen

Originally posted by: stndn
web based?
how about php/perl + mysql?
it works for both *nix and win*

Ditto that.

though what eaglekeeper said reigns supreme.


"Either choice, you should use the language that you are most comfortable with and document the application heavily. "

Yeah, if you did a web app, you would only have to write it once.

 

[KB]

I am a big fan of .Net and java. The strengths of these frameworks is that you can write your business logic code into classes and if you do it effectively you can then rewrite the UI without having to touch the business logic code. This means you could write it in jsp/ASP.Net and jump to forms based if the web solution doesn't work well.

But for someting that simple you could do it in Microsoft Access in windows or Reckall in *nix.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: DAM
[*]Keep track of emails with customer.
[*]Keep track of customer FTP accounts.

Hey Dam! Something encrypted

 

[kamper]

I'd use java and mysql. But I'd use that for just about anything anyways...

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Python, and some sort of sql database, depending on how much data you're dealing with.

 

[drag]

If you write good python, it will run on Windows AND Unix equally well.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: drag
If you write good python, it will run on Windows AND Unix equally well.

Ah well, "good" isn't quite what I'd call it. Even in a portable language, writing portable code often requires more work and isn't worth it; however, if you need to, it is fairly easy most of the time. But platform-specific python isn't "bad."

 

[ynotravid]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: drag
If you write good python, it will run on Windows AND Unix equally well.

Ah well, "good" isn't quite what I'd call it. Even in a portable language, writing portable code often requires more work and isn't worth it; however, if you need to, it is fairly easy most of the time. But platform-specific python isn't "bad."

It seems to me that with preferences aside, Perl and PHP's large, availible, and ever increasing, code base kinda leaves Python the odd man out.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: ynotravid
It seems to me that with preferences aside, Perl and PHP's large, availible, and ever increasing, code base kinda leaves Python the odd man out.

Not sure what you mean by "code base" with respect to an entire programming language, but whatever it is, I wouldn't say that Python's isn't large.

http://docs.python.org/modindex.html
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Modules/
http://www.vex.net/parnassus/

Available? How would code be unavailable?

Ever increasing? Python is going down the tubes?

Some propoganda for ya:

http://developers.slashdot.org...&tid=192&tid=6
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882
http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html

It seems that some people like to quickly dismiss Python because it doesn't fit into the little circle of "super duper popular programming languages." Spend some time learning it, and you'll not only see the light, but you'll decrease the general level of Python ignorance by a tiny bit.

 

[ynotravid]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: ynotravid
It seems to me that with preferences aside, Perl and PHP's large, availible, and ever increasing, code base kinda leaves Python the odd man out.

Not sure what you mean by "code base" with respect to an entire programming language, but whatever it is, I wouldn't say that Python's isn't large.

http://docs.python.org/modindex.html
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Modules/
http://www.vex.net/parnassus/

Available? How would code be unavailable?

Ever increasing? Python is going down the tubes?

Some propoganda for ya:

http://developers.slashdot.org...&tid=192&tid=6
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882
http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html

It seems that some people like to quickly dismiss Python because it doesn't fit into the little circle of "super duper popular programming languages." Spend some time learning it, and you'll not only see the light, but you'll decrease the general level of Python ignorance by a tiny bit.

I wouldn't say that Python isn't large either, that would be ludacrous.

Let me rephrase (it was like 3am when I made the comment).

It should have read:
PHP and Perl are more popular than Python and therefore have more people developing and sharing useful code. What about Python makes it worth choosing over these two?

The reason I ask, is not because I think Python is useless, far from it, but because I really want to know.

In the past I have been interested in checking it out after getting enthusiastic reviews from a couple people including a friend and coworker Jon. But I didn't get very tangible reasoning behind choosing it over other options. The best I really got was: "Perl has evolved into it's role over a long period of time and thus is not streamlined for it's own purpose while Python was designed from the ground up for it's purpose."

Well to sum up a long story, Jon ended up switching over to Perl for a web based project management app he was working on, and when I asked him why, he said he did it because it was harder to find the asnwers to problems he faced using Python. Now to be fair, a year after the whole thing was said and done, he told me if he had to do it all over again he would have used PHP, but that still begs the question: "What about Python makes it worth choosing over the other options?"

Sorry if I struck a sore spot with this. I was not and am not arguing against Python.

That being said, the only conclusion I have been able to formulate thus far, is that, the reason people "quickly dissmiss" Python is because nobody can give them a sexier answer as to why they should use it other than, "it's readable." A valid point but #People figure that that's what comments are for. Ignorant, maybe, but popular none the less. And I think a lot of people are just used to dealing with the terse nature of programming in general.

That is also my opinion on why Python grows slower. For the most part the only people that are picking it up are people that are naturally curious (rare), people who get introduced to it in school(very rare), and people who are willing to take the simple opinion, of someone they respect that "Python is great." All of these people will undoubtably fall in love with the language but not very many people will get to that point.

Thanks for posting the book reviews, hopefully they will help me see the light and decrease the general level of python ignorance a little bit. That's why I post my questions and comments here at Anand.

P.S. I hate people who ramble on in really long posts too.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Cool. I'm not so great at explaining why Python's so great either though. I think it's basically just a near-optimal balance of simplicity and power. Ideas flow naturally in Python.

return '\n'.join([ (" "*self.indent_level + text).rstrip() for line in text.strip().split("\n") ]) + "\n"

LOTS of stuff going on there, yet it's reasonably easy to follow, assuming you know Python of course.

Maybe the best word to describe Python with is "balanced."

Oh and don't forget to "import this"

 

[ynotravid]

Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

lol