Re: CGI or JAVA? Opinions please

bryan.munday_at_parexel.com (Bryan) writes:

> Hi,
>
> I have to link various dB's (7.3.4,8.0.5,8i) to a web front end.
> Various pocedures have been written that will also have to be called
> and executed.
>
> What I would lke to know is what do poeple think is the (I hate to say
> this) best way to link from the browser to the db? Given that I know
> little Java, PHP or Perl, whichever route I chouse will be a learning
> experience. I have a feeling that the PHP/Perl route would be quicker
> than the Java alternative, plus I woun't need to worry about having a
> JSP enabled web server, is this correct?
>

I have a few years development experience with both Perl and Java being used as the basis for the communication between the database and the server. Your best choice depends on a number of issues including the complexity of the applications, the number of users and expected query load etc.

I find perl is good for fairly quick applications which are not too complicated and don't have too many developers working on it. My main reservation about perl is that I don't feel it scales well for large complex applications (don't get me wrong though - I really like perl). However, for more complex applications - especially those with a development team consisting of more than a couple of people, I think Java is better because it scales better.

With respect to performance, if you use a servelet engine, Java is quite good, but so is Perl if you use mod_perl and packages like fast_cgi etc. Using perl and perl's DBI, you need to be a little careful about how you structure your sql - queries can become very slow if you don't use the right return types or fail to take advantage of prepared statements, bind variables etc.

One issue which might be worth considering is to what extent you want to partition your code from your content. I quite like JSP because it makes it fairly easy to keep your code and your content separate from each other.

With respect ot getting up to speed etc - I found it was quicker to start getting results using perl. With java it took longer before I actually had anything much to show, but that was because I put considerable effort into developing some base classes and utility methods etc. Once these were done, adding new functionality or even creating new applications was very fast because a lot of the standard grunt work was already done.

One thing to check out before you get started with web based apps is style sheets. I originally started web development before the advent of style sheets and remember the hassle of trying to maintain a consistent look and feel and the hassles of modify that look and feel when marketing department decided things needed a facelift. Style sheets can really help with this aspect of things and are worth the time to check out.

Sorry, don't know anything about PHP.

Finally, if possible, avoid client side scripts if possible - these can be a real pain because suddenly the effectiveness of your application, or possibly just its percieved effectiveness is affected by the make and version of browser being used by the customer (well, this is always an issue to some extent, but much more so once you introduce client side scripts etc).

Tim X. Received on Sun Jun 30 2002 - 18:46:26 CDT