(OP here)
Ruby on Rails is nothing but a framework. It's just option 2. I'm planning on using PHP for this because
(1) I know PHP
(2) I know C/C++ but I have no desire to create CGI
(3) I know Perl, but have no desire to use DBI, which I've heard horror stories about, or to learn Perl CGI. (Yea...Yea... I know that slashdot and livejournal are high-traffic sites that make use of Perl)
(4) I don't want to learn Ruby right now. Maybe sometime in the future.
(5) I know Objective-C but I don't plan on creating a Cocoa (or GNUStep) program to generate a bunch of static HTML and upload it to a server
Name:
Anonymous2006-06-29 1:50
I know Perl, but have no desire to use DBI, which I've heard horror stories about, or to learn Perl CGI.
Where'd you here that? Some PHP forum? You know Perl my ass.
Perl's DBI is the thing to use. It's so good everyone else with a brain copied it long ago. Of course, then there's the PHP way: http://4-ch.net/code/kareha.pl/1120533289/9
PS. If you can't figure out how to use something as simple as CGI/FastCGI, you don't belong on this forum.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 11:25
I'm not saying I can't. I'm saying that I don't have the desire to spend the time on it now. Right now I know how to design most things for a site in PHP off the top of my head, Perl not so much. I know how to use Perl as basic shell scripting (administration tasks, etc). But I've never used it for much more than that.
Also, how is it that "You know Perl my ass" because I've never used DBI? Could I say that "you know C my ass" because you've never linked against the OpenSSL libraries? Settle down dude.
Maybe DBI isn't crappy. Like I said. I haven't used it. I was just basing that on the opinion of someone else.
And as far as CGI/FastCGI, I never said I was incapable of doing anything. Assuming that because I said I haven't learned something and I don't want to right now it means that I'm incompetent is a bit of a stretch. How am I to know how easy or hard something is that I've never worked with? The concepts of CGI aren't hard, but it's the interface to them that I would have to learn. Right now the only real CGI that I've done is in PHP, but I don't know how different interfacing with things like cookie values, post data, uploaded files, and such are within Perl as opposed to PHP. Just because you've learned it and been using it for decades doesn't mean that everyone and their brother knows how easy the interface is.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 11:33
Is DBI part of the perl install? What about things like XML? Because if you are going for shared hosting you probably won't have access install things like this. Especially if you have modules that are just interfaces to C libraries... Because then the host provider would have to have that C library installed too, even if you could install the module.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 19:54
Also, how is it that "You know Perl my ass" because I've never used DBI?
Yes, I was being overly harsh. Sorry. It's just that this whole DBI issue is widely known. I rarely use Perl, but even I know this.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 20:01
Because if you are going for shared hosting you probably won't have access install things like this.
I have never seen a host without DBI installed. It would break the entire purpose of LAMP for that particular language.
True. But there are a lot of things in PHP that you would need Perl modules for that may or may not be installed by default with your hosting provider. If they were part of the default Perl install it might force the fact, but in that case the depth of PHP's internal libs can be a benefit. The downside is that there are a lot of things in PHP that most people will never use and you're forced to have all that extra in there.
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Anonymous2006-06-30 2:21
>>13
But then if you need some library that PHP wasn't compiled with, you're in for a lot more trouble than you would be for installing a Perl module... which in turn makes people much more inclined to write pure-PHP libraries than C-and-PHP libraries.