From: Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@...>
Date: 2006-01-04T01:32:00+09:00
Subject: Re: application and web app technologies

On 1/3/06, ccc <cartercc@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From what I have gathered, our first impulse to use Java was probably
> the right one, even though it wasn't really based on any kind of
> investigation. I just hate to commit to something that I have doubts
> about.

I have been programming Java for about 8 years (6 or 7 of that
professionally) and Ruby for about 5 years (mostly as a hobbyist.)
I've dabbled in Python but not much in Perl.

With that said, I would not recommend Java for the kind of tasks you
seem to be doing. You need something flexible and lightweight, and
from my experience Java is not that. Java certainly has its place, but
I don't think your university and its associated applications is one
of those places.

I would highly recommend you stay in the scripting language realm,
either maintaining your Perl or switching to Python or Ruby.

Ruby is a great language and one that I have found fits my style and
mind better than Python or Perl. It has the flexible TIMTOWDI (There
Is More Than One Way to Do It) nature of Perl with less of a tendency
to get obfuscated. I personally never liked the significant whitespace
of Python, but in general it is a great language and would be a good
choice if that style works with you and your colleagues.

Either way, before you make a complete "switch", do a few prototype
applications in the serious contenders for your new language choice.
You should be able to learn the small amount required of each language
to code up some fairly small apps in a week or two, and the learning
experience of coding a real application will be completely worth it.
Believe me there is no better way to learn a language (both its
strengths and weaknesses) than to code up an application in it.

If you could make the *same* application in all your language choices
(let's say the email creator in Ruby, Python and Java) that would
provide the best comparison. I would also recommend posting the
resulting code to Ruby, Python and Java mailing lists or newsgroups to
see what kind of improvements the experts can recommend.

Then show the resulting tweaked code to your colleagues and let them
decide what looks best.

Ryan