Re: [HACKERS] web-based front end development

Thomas Lockhart <lockhart(at)alumni(dot)caltech(dot)edu> writes:
> Hi. There is interest at work in doing some fairly simple inventory
> control using a database. We've already got Postgres up and running
> (for obvious reasons) and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions
> for a good approach to app development for brower-based user
> interfaces.
>
> There are other applications which would be of interest, so something
> with some growth potential would be helpful.
>
> We have a bit of expertise in Java servlets, etc, so that is one
> option via the jdbc interface.
>
> Are there any options which are particularly "approachable" which
> would allow newbies to get something working if they have some
> existing code to look at?

Since you explictly mention Java, you could look at the Java Apache
project, which apparently implements the java servlet
interface. (http://java.apache.org)

If you like Perl, Apache + mod_perl + HTML::Mason have done right by
me for a number of projects. I think it's incredibly approachable (and
powerful), but I've got four years of solid perl experience and like
the language a lot---YMMV. (http://perl.apache.org/,
http://www.masonhq.com/)

If you like TCL, AOLServer definitely deserves a look, as others have
said. It's also a nice, low overhead server to administer.
(http://www.aolserver.com/, http://www.arsdigita.com/)

PHP has a lot of activity, and is supposed to be really fast if you
compile it right into your apache server, although it's often YANAL
for people to have to learn. (http://www.php.net)

Roxen Challenger, with its Pike language and many other nifty features
is also worth a glance, though it's also got the YANAL stigma.
There's both a commercial version and a GPL'd
version. (http://www.roxen.com/)

With the exception of the Java stuff, I am personally aquainted with
significant projects that have been implemented in each of these
environments---all of them have the ability to support large projects,
though I don't know how well they support programming in the large.

I suspect approachability may initially hinge on language familiarity.
If you have to learn a whole new language, you're probably going to
have a steeper learning curve.

Mike.