[techtalk] Web programming and nomic

Jillian-Beth Stamos-Kaschke jbsk at metis.de
Mon Jun 5 17:27:56 EST 2000


Hi Britta,

Having just completed a project at work which more or less does
just what you want (minus the login bit), I feel competent enough to
answer a couple of your questions.

> 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?

weeell: php was designed especially for use on web pages. You can however
use PHP either as an Apache module (no command-line use of your PHP
scripts, the module resides inside the server) or as a CGI module, 
which allows you to write shellscripts in PHP.

 I'm not sure if there's more than one way to do PHP things, so if you're
used to the extreme flexibility Perl gives you, you might find PHP takes
some getting used to. Caveat: I'm neither a Perlmeistress nor a PHP
expert, I just muddle through. You might want to take a look at the
PHP website (http://www.php.net) or Kristian Koehntopp's PHP FAQ
(http://www.koehntopp.de/php).
 
> I'd be happy for any other suggestions and tips. And what database
> should I use? mySQL, mSQL or PostgreSQL? Are there any others?

Ah! The bit I know slightly more about:

MySQL is pretty widely-used (and was the database used in the project).
Its pros are: stability and performance, and as long as you don't have
to do things such as porting other databases to MySQL, simplicity.
The cons are: no transaction support (important if you have several
people updating the database at once), no subselects (nasty if you're
used to using them) and no triggers (ditto, also potentially hairy if 
you're porting a database to MySQL). PHP includes special MySQL
connectivity features.

MSQL is more or less what MySQL evolved from, if I remember correctly, 
and has a similar lack of features.

PostgreSQL evolved from a database named Ingres (hence the name) and
seems to support everything MySQL and mSQL lack. I'll certainly be
checking it out somewhen during the near future, so I could keep you
posted if you want. It is also free in the "free speech" sense :)

Oracle also has a Linux version out which can be downloaded from
the Oracle website and is ridiculously large, so an extremely
fast connection would come in handy there. I think you can also write
and ask them for a CD-ROM, which probably works out cheaper if
you're planning to download the software from home. Caveat Nr. 2:
Although I personally love working with Oracle (*ducks*), it can
seem very daunting at first, especially without a book. If all you
want is a database with names, addresses etc., then I'd suggest
MySQL (and the O'Reilly book by Yarger, Reese and King). If you
want more features but don't want Oracle overkill, then try PostgreSQL.

All this is based on my experience and is accordingly incomplete.

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

Hope this helps,

Jillian.





More information about the Techtalk mailing list