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Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

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Re: Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

#51

Post by SwellJoe »

ido wrote: post #36
phony_identity wrote: post #29

PLT Scheme + PLT Scheme web server + flat files (actually serialized s-expressions on disk. Which aren't very flat.)

Why not use a database?

You're asking "why not add complexity?" Not a good place to start.

If a project needs a database you'll know it pretty quickly...and it's easy to convert to using a database at that point. The only time I've ever regretted a decision about databases was when I designed a log processor that didn't immediately have relational needs...over a couple of weeks of implementing the requirements I ended up writing a relational layer in Perl against a Berkeley DB backend. That was stupid, and I should have thought a little harder about the requirements. But it was my first big solo project, so I blame inexperience for not recognizing a relational problem from the start. Luckily, SQLite had just been released, and converting my app to use it (and losing a hundred lines of code) was a one day operation. It made the app approximately 100 times faster for my data set.

But, well over half of my applications since then have not required a database and have been well-served by flat files.

Re: Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

#54

Post by phony_identity »

ido wrote: post #36
phony_identity wrote: post #29

PLT Scheme + PLT Scheme web server + flat files (actually serialized s-expressions on disk. Which aren't very flat.)

Why not use a database?

Because it's much easier to just dump your data to disk as you already have it, rather than translate it to SQL idea of what data is: SQL types, one-to-many relationships, etc.

This is not just a Scheme thing. If you use Java you have serialization. Python calls it 'pickle'. I'm sure whatever else you are using probably has something equally simple.

Re: Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

#56

Post by wastedbrains »

papersmith wrote: post #38

Started out with Ruby on Rails, changed to Python (pylons) + mako + toscawidgets + postgres for more flexibility. Considering giving Common Lisp (Uncommon Web) a try, but the documentation scared the heck out of me.

We are currently looking at both Ruby and Python... What made you change, what makes you feel more flexible? We have been evaluating some of the Python frameworks and are currently trying to weight the positive and negatives of all the options... Any huge issues or just a bunch of different little things?

Re: Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

#58

Post by papersmith »

wastedbrains wrote: post #56
papersmith wrote: post #38

Started out with Ruby on Rails, changed to Python (pylons) + mako + toscawidgets + postgres for more flexibility. Considering giving Common Lisp (Uncommon Web) a try, but the documentation scared the heck out of me.

We are currently looking at both Ruby and Python... What made you change, what makes you feel more flexible? We have been evaluating some of the Python frameworks and are currently trying to weight the positive and negatives of all the options... Any huge issues or just a bunch of different little things?

To be honest the different isn't that huge. The major reason I chose python is because there are many python web libraries that conform to WSGI standard, which means I can easily swap out components (routing, template, widgets, database mapping, etc.) that suites me the best. As a result there is a broader variety of each type to choose from in python.

Rails, as stated by its creators, is opinionated software, so you're stuck with their preferred way of doing things, which fortunately is not too bad as of now. So if you're a control-freak like me who also wants to squeeze more juice out of your CPU cycles, then go for python. If you want to put your trust in a well-integrated framework of components cherry-picked by smart folks, then go for rails or django (also python, but a little less flexible).

Here's a fairly up-to-date overview of python web dev options: http://jesusphreak.infogami.com/blog/vrp1

Re: Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

#59

Post by gommm »

Ruby on Rails and Merb.

I'm actually just starting to use merb for simple requests that don't need the full rails stack (merb being threadsafe whereas rails is not, so it's useful to delegate some of the simple stuff to merb).

I still plan on investigating flex and seaside in the short term, just to see if there is any good ideas I can learn... (in a longuer term, I'll dedicate some time to lisp)

Re: Which Programming Language did you pick for your idea?

#60

Post by theoutlander »

papersmith wrote: post #58
wastedbrains wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are currently looking at both Ruby and Python... What made you change, what makes you feel more flexible? We have been evaluating some of the Python frameworks and are currently trying to weight the positive and negatives of all the options... Any huge issues or just a bunch of different little things?

To be honest the different isn't that huge. The major reason I chose python is because there are many python web libraries that conform to WSGI standard, which means I can easily swap out components (routing, template, widgets, database mapping, etc.) that suites me the best. As a result there is a broader variety of each type to choose from in python. Rails, as stated by its creators, is opinionated software, so you…

I feel horrible for not giving python a chance .... but then there are only so many languages one can do mock-ups in .... before making a decision
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