If you had unlimited resources (including a team of brilliant developers), and you were building a website that met following requirements, which programming language(s) would you use and why?
- Spider-web-style map visualizations with drag-and-drop capabilities (in AJAX, not Flash)
- A large database with lots of cross-references (tagging, stories, user accounts with different levels of connection)
- High traffic, needs to be fast
- Clear core requirements, but the expectation that lots of other features will be added in the future
Your answer will aid the widespread rehabilitation of sex on the internet.
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October 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Java, of course…
(But I’m biased, ‘cuz that’s my day job!)
Also, Ruby/Rails is hottt right now, so you might be able to find willing talent, though Ruby/Rails has had some challenges with performance…
October 5th, 2008 at 5:11 am
It’s hard to pick a favorite programming language …because hardly a single language alone is used.
Each site depending on many variables will, well – vary.
Sites use a combination of technologies that make it what it is.
More importantly, you should just focus on the concept…on what it is, and how it’s presented to your ideal demographic. Don’t dwell too much on the behind the scenes stuff.
worry about that later – assuming you even get to that point
October 5th, 2008 at 7:17 am
is sex on the internet in need of widespread rehabilitation?
i tend to agree with lawrence… the choice of platform is the last thing to worry about. in the early stages, designing the features, functionality, user interface, look-and-feel, etc is much more important. when you do get around to selecting a platform, it sounds like speed and scalability will be the most important considerations for that project.
if you have brilliant developers and unlimited resources, i wanna work for you!
October 5th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Hi Lawrence,
Thanks for responding — this is great advice for a team that’s just getting started, and I can understand how it might seem like we’re in that boat. However, we’re actually much further along than we’ve let on, and my question is relevant.
When I say “programming language,” I’m referring to the primary back-end system framework for managing dynamic information — whether that’s PHP, Python, Java, Coldfusion, Rails or something else.
But the discussion here has really confirmed one thing for me: It’s time to host a jousting tournament down by the Sutro Baths. Each competitor will be a religious adherent to one of the frameworks we’re considering, and we’ll see who wins in a match to the death governed by user stories and prototypes. The front end developers and database architects will serve as judges. The dress code will be Spandex.
This, I think, will give us our answer.
Are you in or out?
~Sarah
October 5th, 2008 at 11:52 am
There should be forfeits for the losers, of course. Just to make it REALLY interesting…
October 5th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Catherine, how about the losers have to write x number of lines of code in the winners’ favorite framework?
(I’m writing my own mvc framework. All the ones I really liked, I would have to re-install php with a different configuration in order to use, and I refuse to require that of my clients, who often have good and sensible reasons for the way their php is set up.)
October 6th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I don’t do Spandex – and San Franciscan’s are too sexually-liberal
October 6th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Realistically, all the languages that are at least moderately popular will do. The experience of the development team is almost certainly way more important.
My personal pick for a primary language would be Ruby, because it’s my favorite and I’ve been using it for seven years or so. The C extension interface is nice and there’s a good number of libraries for it. Currently I favor a stack consisting of Merb (backend framework), Thin or Ebb (HTTP server lib), nginx (for load balancing), jQuery (client-side scripting), memcached (reducing read load on DB), PostgreSQL or MySQL (usual RDBMS), Capistrano (deployment control), ans Sphinx (if full-text search is desired).
For my “day job” I primarily write code in Perl and C, and that works fine too; I’d hesitate before starting a web-oriented project in it these days (although much of the code from the LiveJournal folks is great). Python, Java, PHP, and probably others have good resources available to them.
October 7th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Python and Django get you up and running very quickly!
October 8th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Mark: ha, yes, that would be a good forfeit! :) The annoyance factor (if the loser REALLY hates that framework) and the education factor (they might discover that the winner’s framework actually had something going for it).
November 26th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Hi!
I made with photoshop glitter myspace banners.
have a look at them:
http://tinyurl.com/5ajypv
Thank you for your website ;-) xoxoxo