Re: Re: Yet another Perl vs Java forweb app development question (Moved from Q&A)

[fongsaiyuk]

yes you did! Thanks so much for your reply.

The bottom line is that we'll be going with a perl solution.

Wheee!

I'm thinking mod_perl, HTML::Mason, Apache::Session, and Apache::DBI to start. Might need to throw in some XML eventually... (gotta be buzz word compliant) :)

If the mod_perl stuff gets icky we'll just fall back to good 'ol mod_perl, Apache::Registry, and CGI...
Thanks again!

[jreades]

The bottom line is always to look towards where your needs will be six months, a year, two years from now because any time you don't plan that way you can guarantee that that code will come back to haunt you...

I am a big Mason fan -- I've used it extensively across the sites that I build and maintain: here (side note: try using lynx -- it's a small vanity, but I wanted to write the component anyway).

From my standpoint, I particularly like the object-like features added to Mason 0.89 (methods, quasi-static variables, attributes), because they allow you to seperate the formatting from the content very effectively.

But wait, I'm doing OO in Perl... maybe Java would be the right answer?

Of course, it all depends -- on how many people are going to be hitting your inventory system, what kind of wait they're willing to accept, what kind of overhead the system can have...

The persistence of Java objects beyond the scope of the request and their ability to talk between machines is a distinct asset in some circumstances. The ease of writing Perl code and parsing/embedding text is an asset in others.

With Mason around there's no excuse for resorting to CGI -- Mason makes outputting any kind of HTML easier -- but as much as I prefer Perl for almost anything, don't just jump for the easy answer until you've made a full assesment: first of your needs, then your capabilities, and finally of the languages themselves.

It's a truism that most programming projects fail in the planning stage because critical assumptions are overlooked and the requirements not fully spelled out. I'd strongly urge you to fully develop the Use Cases, Entity Relationships and all that other annoying crap first and then come back with the question: java or perl?