On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 09:49:33PM -0500, Sam Fourman Jr. wrote:
> Thank you all for the input this is GREAT
>
> I have always liked Procedural languages as well as compiled
> languages, I tend not to like runtimes. One of the Major reasons for
> FINALLY ditching Windows, cold turkey and switching to OpenBSD, was I
> felt that Windows in general made it hard to code in C, and i didn't
> see that changing, with the new whizzbang WinFX .NET mess.
>
> that said, is it not a wise decision to develop a large AJAX /
> PostgreSQL application (For a government client), where the code base
> will be around for a certain 15 years(the current application is
> FoxPro 2.6 1991 Runtime)
>
> Security is Paramount(hence the OpenBSD over Rhat Choice for the
> Operating System, and PostgreSQL over MySQL for the database)
>
> it would seem to me that C is PostgreSQL's Native language and OpenBSD
> developers prefer C the uphill battle may be worth it.
>
> I am Searching the Internet for a Basic Hello World Ajax sample written in C
> if anyone has one laying around please reply to this post
C is not the language commonly used for web applications. While this
shouldn't be taken to mean that C cannot be used in such a role, you
would deprive yourself of a lot of useful work done in other
environments.
For instance, PHP, despite its downsides, does have a large number of
libraries and pre-made scripts that are very useful when writing a web
application.
Other scripting languages (Perl, Python, Ruby) have similar support, but
without as many security issues.
If you are building something that should work in 15 years, though, C
may not be the worst choice. PHP breaks compatability quite often, and
Perl 6 is also likely to break things in interesting ways. I wouldn't
know about Python or Ruby, but C has been around for a long time and
it's highly likely that a well-written C app will still compile on
OpenBSD 5.5. Some adapting to newer versions of external libraries is
likely to be required, though.
Others with more experience in this particular arena might be willing to
suggest alternatives - Java, perhaps?
However, it's probably better to get someone to do some maintenance in
the interval and just using a scripting language with web libraries.
Using C, while very much possible, would be a painful way to learn.
Joachim
