[techtalk] Web programming and nomic

[Britta Koch]

Hi!

Having learnt about nomic from the grrltalk list (it's a game about
changing the rules, FAQ at
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~malcolmr/nomic/FAQ.html ), I thought it
would be an interesting project for learning to set up dynamic
websites. Since I've never done anything like it before, I'd be
interested in what might be the best solution.

Requirements: Since nomic is always a "work in progress", it would have
to be easy to change. Separation of data and presentation would not
be too important. At first, I'll want a few databases and pages
displaying data from them (members, rules), also a login screen and
voting and proposing things after logging in. A cron jobby thing for
calculating scores and votes would be nice, too.

I know about the following possibilities:

- CGIs in perl / python. Stateless, so not so great with logging in, but
probably quite easy to change.

- PHP. Is that different from CGIs?

- Java servlets. Not as stateless as CGIs, since they live inside the
web server.

- Zope. I apt-got it, looked at it and went "huh?". Then I isnatlled
squishdot and got a glimpse of what you can do with it - but it may be
overkill. Zope appears to do the state stuff with logging in itself
(with cookies?), but may be an overkill.

I'd be happy for any other suggestions and tips. And what database
should I use? mySQL, mSQL or PostgreSQL? Are there any others?

Thanx for any help - I'm clueless at this!

Britta

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