January, 2006. I do not intend to start any kind of flame war, but only to seek advice about different technologies concerning which I am mostly ignorant.
I am the database manager for a unit of a major state university. A part of my job includes building database access and web enabled applications for student services, faculty, and staff. These include both information gathering applications and dynamic updates from our big database to other applications. About 90 percent of our current programming is in Perl. Of the rest, some is in ColdFusion, some is in VB6, and we may have snippets in other languages. I might add that our WWW pages are all in ColdFusion, which we like very much and have no interest in changing. I have been tasked by me IT department with investigating different technologies for what will be a total rewrite and major update of our applications. The problem with Perl is that it seems dowdy and old fashioned, and that we never really investigate alternatives. We just fell into Perl because that's what people knew. Also, we have had some staff changes, and updating Perl code, some of which is years old, has proved to be a real nightmare. Perl works great! ... but trying to read and modify someone else's code, or even your own, is pretty darn tough. A real important part of this is database connectivity. We use a number of different databases, Access, SQL Server, Datatel (the big University DB), PostgreSQL (my favorite), MySQL, and a couple of others. Here is where we currently are: * Java/JSP -- We have already made the decision to go with Java, but we haven't started with it, and have not committed to Java. * Python -- Some of us have had limited experience with Python. * Ruby -- We have a Ruby advocate here, but no one knows anything about it. * .NET/ASP -- We have a MS shop, I think that we have two UNIX servers out of several dozen, and we are pretty firmly committed to Windows, but no one is real excited about .NET, and the chances that we will choose .NET seem real remote. Are there any advantages to using .NET? * OO Perl/Perl6 -- Perl has worked real well for us, but we have doubts that it is the best technology, and we want to make a serious attempt to look at other things. * C/C++ -- I mention this only because this is what IT uses. We have no interest in C/C++, unless it really is the best. We want something that we can use across the board, from web apps to sys admin (which is why ColdFusion is not a candidate). I'm not interested in advocacy, but if anyone has experience in and compare these technologies, we would be grateful for your experiences. My apologies for cross posting, I don't do it often, but I'd like to reach as wide an audience as possible. CC -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
