[GLLUG] General programming question

[Jason Green]

Thanks to everyone for all of the helpful and insightful responses.  I'll
definately take a look at the links everyone provided and look into a java
solution as well.  As I come across stumbling blocks, I'll probably turn
here for some more advice.  This group never ceases to amaze me with its
broad knowledge base.  Thanks again!


Jason Green
greenja6@msu.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Justman" <justmanj@msu.edu>
To: "Jason Green" <greenja6@msu.edu>
Cc: <linux-user@egr.msu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: [GLLUG] General programming question


> PHP should work ok for what you are looking for.  It can be pretty quick
> to develop, thanks to the php online documenation
> (http://www.php.net/manual/en/) and the ability to jump to a manual page
> via www.php.net/pg_connect or www.php/(function_name_here).  of course,
> using good development techniques of seperating application from
> supporting libaries goes a long way (i recommend the 'require
> "filename_here.class"' command).
>
> look into using some templating library, such as phplib..  or if you are
> up to it, write your own.  it will definately help in writing your code
> and seperating portions of nasty html..   likewise for database access -
> you can use the db abstraction tools from phplib or some other comination.
>
> naturally, since you asked for which os would work the best - i would
> recommend linux ;).
>
> when you say 'concurrent users', do you mean like running apachebench
> with -c100?  or say 100 users in a 5 minute period?  these two metrics
> are vastly different.  it also depends on the complexity of the
> strucuter of your code and the bottlenecks in the application.  are db
> queries at fault for poor performance?  or is the interepted overhead of
> php slowing you down?  if it's the latter, zend sells a product for
> optimizing and compiling into zend bytecode (if you wish to re-sell this
> to someone else)..
>
> jason
>
> Jason Green wrote:
>
> >I'm looking for a good combination of a front-end interface/programming
> >language and a scalable back-end database.  After a bit of research, I'm
> >leaning towards PHP on Apache with PostgreSQL.  This will be used to
develop
> >an accounting system for a niche market with customizable reporting
> >abilities and will generate government reports and contracts.
Replication
> >is important (hourly backups if a mirroring-type solution is not
available).
> >
> >I've never used PHP (and not much HTML), but have a decent amount of
C/C++
> >knowledge.  However, my primary skills are in MS Access and VB/VBA.  I
> >looked at pgAccess which is a Tcl/Tk app that tries to mimic MS Access.
> >It's not very impressive yet, but has a lot of potential.
> >
> >I like PostgreSQL's transaction support as well as the "better than
> >record-level locking" they use.  This application will need to
accommodate
> >roughly 100 concurrent users.  I really like Access for it's rapid
> >application deployment abilities, but I've experienced too much database
> >corruption, it's slow for multi-user applications, and won't really scale
to
> >my needs.  Plus, MS's licensing is getting ridiculous, and I refuse to
> >license MS SQL Server when open source alternatives exist.
> >
> >So, has anyone developed any applications with this kind of usage level?
> >What would you recommend for database software, easy to manipulate front
> >ends (and intuitive for end users), or other general suggestions?  Any
> >specific resources you've found helpful?  Oh yeah, if you have a
suggestion
> >for database software, which OS works the best for it?  Thanks in
advance!
> >
> >Jason Green
> >greenja6@msu.edu
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >linux-user mailing list
> >linux-user@egr.msu.edu
> >http://www.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user
> >
> >
>
>
>