Web application: Programming language/Framework

Hi,

I am working on web applications based on PostgreSQL, Apache and PHP4 and Perl
(and even in C/C++ sometimes). I prefer Perl, because it is easy to use and has
lots and lots of ready-to-use modules for nearly any purpose. At the moment I am
working on XML interfaces for data exchange between our customers and our
application using an Apache webserver - pure perl (XML::Simple, XML::SAX, DBI
and some other modules), and works like a charm. PHP seems to me to be not very
open to third-party-modules, and sometimes not as reliable as Perl, and the
buglist custodians of PHP do not convince me really.

For web applications I usually use the following technique:

My CGIs are rather complete serving applications which stay resident due to the
use of FastCGI. They receive requests (by Apache), dispatch them to the
appropriate subroutines, do some work with the request and deliver the results.
Design is (nearly) completely separated from logic due to the use of
CGI::FastTemplate. HTML is developed as pure HTML Template with variables which
are filled by the CGI application in a very convenient and easy-to-use way.

All parts I use are quite mature and available since several years.

With Java I do not have lots of experience, so I cannot compare.

Your and other people´s mileage may of course vary.

Regards, Frank

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 15:10:48 +0200 Arthur van Dorp <arthur_vd@gmx.net> sat down,
thought long and then wrote:

Hi all

This is a bit off topic but I don't know where else to ask (please tell
me if you know). I'm going to build a web application. The choice of the
underlying database wasn't difficult. After a few preliminary tests I'm
confident that PostgreSQL is absolutely up to the task. But I'm at a
loss regarding the "middleware". I know Apache quite well, so I wouldn't
mind continuing using it. But what language/application server/whatever
do you recommend? Java/J2EE/JBoss, Struts, Perl, Python/Zope, PHP 5,
XYZ...? There are a few prerequisits such a framework would have to meet:

* Reasonably scalable.
* Works well together with PostgreSQL. An abstraction layer which
separates the SQL stuff from the rest probably wouldn't be bad either.
* Security:
* I don't like to worry to much about buffer overflows, SQL
injections and the like when coding.
* The framework shouldn't need a security update every few days.
* Support for encryption at the web frontend side and possibly
on the DB end (OpenSSL being my favorite).
* Well established: Nothing that vanishes after a few months just
because it was the latest craze. Something where you find documentation,
mailing lists and a community.
* Free (open source) and free (or reasonably priced with the possibility
to change the provider). I've had my share of vendor lock-in.
* Support for handling XML data as in- and output.
* Separation of web frontend logic and web frontend design.
* Ease of use is never bad. ;)

I'm looking forward to your suggestions.
Thanks
Arthur

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Hi Arthur;

Ah, the topic of flame wars.

I program in Perl, Python, and PHP. I use them for different
applications, but they are all good. Usually I use PHP for web apps,
Perl and Python for other apps. But these are not hard and fast rules.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

ps Additional comments inline.

Arthur van Dorp wrote:

Hi all

This is a bit off topic but I don't know where else to ask (please tell
me if you know). I'm going to build a web application. The choice of the
underlying database wasn't difficult. After a few preliminary tests I'm
confident that PostgreSQL is absolutely up to the task. But I'm at a
loss regarding the "middleware". I know Apache quite well, so I wouldn't
mind continuing using it. But what language/application server/whatever
do you recommend? Java/J2EE/JBoss, Struts, Perl, Python/Zope, PHP 5,
XYZ...? There are a few prerequisits such a framework would have to meet:

* Reasonably scalable.
* Works well together with PostgreSQL. An abstraction layer which
separates the SQL stuff from the rest probably wouldn't be bad either.
* Security:
* I don't like to worry to much about buffer overflows, SQL
injections and the like when coding.

Buffer overruns are prevented in Perl, Python, and PHP. SQL injection
attacks are a much larger issue though.

* The framework shouldn't need a security update every few days.
* Support for encryption at the web frontend side and possibly
on the DB end (OpenSSL being my favorite).
* Well established: Nothing that vanishes after a few months just
because it was the latest craze. Something where you find documentation,
mailing lists and a community.
* Free (open source) and free (or reasonably priced with the possibility
to change the provider). I've had my share of vendor lock-in.
* Support for handling XML data as in- and output.
* Separation of web frontend logic and web frontend design.
* Ease of use is never bad. ;)

Otherwise, I like PHP, Perl, and Python.

Chris Travers wrote:

Hi Arthur;

Ah, the topic of flame wars.

My company also does a great deal of web application programming. Rule
of thumb for us is:

Anything system/administrative level goes in Perl.
Anything application/oo or server level (triggeres for example, or
processes) go in Python
Anything Web goes in PHP (Although we are rethinking that do to the
constant OO issues with PHP).

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

I program in Perl, Python, and PHP. I use them for different
applications, but they are all good. Usually I use PHP for web apps,
Perl and Python for other apps. But these are not hard and fast rules.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

ps Additional comments inline.

Arthur van Dorp wrote:

Hi all

This is a bit off topic but I don't know where else to ask (please tell
me if you know). I'm going to build a web application. The choice of the
underlying database wasn't difficult. After a few preliminary tests I'm
confident that PostgreSQL is absolutely up to the task. But I'm at a
loss regarding the "middleware". I know Apache quite well, so I wouldn't
mind continuing using it. But what language/application server/whatever
do you recommend? Java/J2EE/JBoss, Struts, Perl, Python/Zope, PHP 5,
XYZ...? There are a few prerequisits such a framework would have to
meet:

* Reasonably scalable.
* Works well together with PostgreSQL. An abstraction layer which
separates the SQL stuff from the rest probably wouldn't be bad either.
* Security:
* I don't like to worry to much about buffer overflows, SQL
injections and the like when coding.

Buffer overruns are prevented in Perl, Python, and PHP. SQL injection
attacks are a much larger issue though.

* The framework shouldn't need a security update every few days.
* Support for encryption at the web frontend side and possibly
on the DB end (OpenSSL being my favorite).
* Well established: Nothing that vanishes after a few months just
because it was the latest craze. Something where you find documentation,
mailing lists and a community.
* Free (open source) and free (or reasonably priced with the possibility
to change the provider). I've had my share of vendor lock-in.
* Support for handling XML data as in- and output.
* Separation of web frontend logic and web frontend design.
* Ease of use is never bad. ;)

Otherwise, I like PHP, Perl, and Python.

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On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 11:02, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Chris Travers wrote:

Hi Arthur;

Ah, the topic of flame wars.

My company also does a great deal of web application programming. Rule
of thumb for us is:

Anything system/administrative level goes in Perl.
Anything application/oo or server level (triggeres for example, or
processes) go in Python
Anything Web goes in PHP (Although we are rethinking that do to the
constant OO issues with PHP).

That's why PHP 5 exists. :-)

-Robby

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That's why PHP 5 exists. :-)

When it proves stable ;). Although it still does have some issues with
Apache 2. Which is a shame.
To be fair, it isn't really PHP that has the problems but some of the
libraries it uses are thread safe.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

-Robby

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On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 12:18, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

That's why PHP 5 exists. :-)

When it proves stable ;). Although it still does have some issues with
Apache 2. Which is a shame.

But your OO problems exist in a *stable* 4.x? I'm running with Apache 2
and haven't come across any issues yet. (perhaps i haven't tapped into
those bad libs yet). The benefits of the new OO functionality is
definitely a huge improvement and that makes it more *stable* than 4.x
in my opinion.

To be fair, it isn't really PHP that has the problems but some of the
libraries it uses are thread safe.

From what I recall these same issues existed in 4.x as well, so 5
shouldn't make much of a difference.

-Robby

--
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* Robby Russell | Owner.Developer.Geek
* PLANET ARGON | www.planetargon.com
* Portland, OR | robby@planetargon.com
* 503.351.4730 | blog.planetargon.com
* PHP/PostgreSQL Hosting & Development
****************************************/

On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 12:37, Robby Russell wrote:

On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 12:18, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

That's why PHP 5 exists. :-)

When it proves stable ;). Although it still does have some issues with
Apache 2. Which is a shame.

But your OO problems exist in a *stable* 4.x? I'm running with Apache 2
and haven't come across any issues yet. (perhaps i haven't tapped into
those bad libs yet). The benefits of the new OO functionality is
definitely a huge improvement and that makes it more *stable* than 4.x
in my opinion.

To be fair, it isn't really PHP that has the problems but some of the
libraries it uses are thread safe.

From what I recall these same issues existed in 4.x as well, so 5
shouldn't make much of a difference.

-Robby

Also, prefork exists for this problem as well:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/prefork.html

-Robby

--
/***************************************
* Robby Russell | Owner.Developer.Geek
* PLANET ARGON | www.planetargon.com
* Portland, OR | robby@planetargon.com
* 503.351.4730 | blog.planetargon.com
* PHP/PostgreSQL Hosting & Development
****************************************/

PHP is a very weak language... I'd advise mod_python or skunkweb, if you
don't know Python, learn it, you won't be disappointed !

Off course PHP is a very weak language... Is than weak that SF.net have
9144 PHP projects and 3292 Python projects. Python is a very good
language, but is discourteous (or that is a signal of knowledge lack) to
speak that 'php is a very weak language', when knows that exist so many
PHP programmers in this list. Futhermore, this subject is not part
of this list.

Pierre-Frï¿œdï¿œric Caillaud wrote:

PHP is a very weak language... I'd advise mod_python or skunkweb,
if you don't know Python, learn it, you won't be disappointed !

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By "weak", I meant "lack of expressive power", not "weakly supported".
That PHP has a huge community is obvious. It's everywhere. The list of
broken things in PHP is too long to mention, just think about namespaces
for instance. I have no bad feelings towards people who use PHP, rather I
wonder why so many people waste their time with such a badly designed
tool. I did not intend to be discourteous, my excuses if I was, rather, I
wanted to help the OP out of the PHP mess.
I have had to code in PHP and always hated it.

I know this is off-topic so... snip.

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:15:18 -0300, Gustavo Franklin Nï¿œbrega - PLANAE
<gfnobrega@planae.com.br> wrote:

Just a little on the history of the tools might be helpful. I think
that these environments are easy to criticize by people who are not
really aware of what the tools are really good for.

PHP:

This is worth noting in the context of this thread though fairly
off-topic for the list.

PHP was designed initially to be a sort of preprocessor for arbitrary
document types. I don't really use it for much system scripting (Perl
is better for that) but for web applications, it works extremely well.
After all, most of your content may be static, and you are really
interested in modifying the static content by preprocessing it.

I prefer PHP because it can easily be embedded in arbitrary document
types and used to modify them. I am starting to use it more and more
for LaTeX documents as well (though I have some automated tools which
can do more simple manupulations using Perl). This is what the tool is
designed for.

Complaining about PHP's namespaces seems to me to be complaining about
the fact that a crescent wrench doesn't pound nails very well.... Not
that you can't pound nails with a crescent wrench but there are more
efficient ways to do it.

Perl:

Perl was originally designed as a tool for processing text files on a
UNIX system. Bear in mind that this is an incredibly useful concept as
everything is a file :-). It is also designed to take the information
and generate reports. So early on, people discovered that Perl made a
pretty useful CGI programming environment because these tools make it
easy to generate HTML. Like PHP, it has an extensive community and a
lot of add-on modules. However, it is fundamentally different.

For an extremely complex web app I might consider using Perl if I needed
some sort of exotic functionality, like Kerberos integration. Such is
usuallly cleaner than PHP extensions.

Perl also makes a wonderful language for automates system administration
tasks because of its text parsing capabilities and the fact that these
are integrated into the language as operators rather than functions.

Python:

Python is a generic programming environment. I really like it where I
am not doing automated document preparation, or where I need something
far more general than automated document generation (PHP or Perl). In
general, I prefer Python for interactive (non-web) applications.

Each of these environments has good PostgreSQL support.

Pierre-Frï¿œdï¿œric Caillaud wrote:

Hi all

I've got a lot of feedback to my question about the ideal web
application framework on- and off-list and would like to summarize it a
bit for future reference. But first thank you all very much for your
help. You've made a blissfully ignorant and indecisive person a somewhat
better informed and indecisive person. ;)

Java/Perl/Python/PHP based frameworks all exist and every language is
used somewhere in a big project with huge numbers of dynamic content
generated. So all of them are quite powerful.

I'll just put all the projects that got named in a list, everything is
easily found with google. Not all of them are frameworks in themselves,
some even use other projects named here, some are just useful tools.
Sorry for not giving any details about each framework. For java
www.waferproject.org has a nice overview.

Java:
Struts / Faces / Cocoon / WebWork / Tapestry / Turbine / Velocity /
Jakarta/Tomcat / Webobjects(proprietary) / Expresso / JPublish / Sofia
A nice overview is here at http://www.waferproject.org/feature-matrix2.html

Perl:
Mason / Bricolage / mod_perl / Fast_CGI / bivio / openframe
A good starting point is http://perl.apache.org/products/app-server.html

Python:
Zope / Quixote / mod_python / skunkweb

PHP:
phpwebapp / horde / logicreate

Thanks again and have fun
Arthur

Maybe I missed something, but why isn't
postgreSQL,aolserver,tcl on your list?
That will be my choice to deliver web applications in
the near future.

Brgds

--- Arthur van Dorp <arthur_vd@gmx.net> wrote:

Hi all

I've got a lot of feedback to my question about the
ideal web
application framework on- and off-list and would
like to summarize it a
bit for future reference. But first thank you all
very much for your
help. You've made a blissfully ignorant and
indecisive person a somewhat
better informed and indecisive person. ;)

Java/Perl/Python/PHP based frameworks all exist and
every language is
used somewhere in a big project with huge numbers of
dynamic content
generated. So all of them are quite powerful.

I'll just put all the projects that got named in a
list, everything is
easily found with google. Not all of them are
frameworks in themselves,
some even use other projects named here, some are
just useful tools.
Sorry for not giving any details about each
framework. For java
www.waferproject.org has a nice overview.

Java:
Struts / Faces / Cocoon / WebWork / Tapestry /
Turbine / Velocity /
Jakarta/Tomcat / Webobjects(proprietary) / Expresso
/ JPublish / Sofia
A nice overview is here at
http://www.waferproject.org/feature-matrix2.html

Perl:
Mason / Bricolage / mod_perl / Fast_CGI / bivio /
openframe
A good starting point is
http://perl.apache.org/products/app-server.html

Python:
Zope / Quixote / mod_python / skunkweb

PHP:
phpwebapp / horde / logicreate

Thanks again and have fun
Arthur

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Maybe I missed something, but why isn't
postgreSQL,aolserver,tcl on your list?
That will be my choice to deliver web applications in
the near future.

Because nobody told me about it. ;) And I can assure you that there are
many many more frameworks around. So many that I wonder whether I
shouldn't just write my own, it must be very simple that almost everyone
has done so.

Arthur

"Arthur" == Arthur van Dorp <arthur_vd@gmx.net> writes:

Arthur> And I can assure you that there
Arthur> are many many more frameworks around. So many that I wonder whether I
Arthur> shouldn't just write my own, it must be very simple that almost
Arthur> everyone has done so.

If I can give you some insight from the Perl world (where there are 57
different templating systems and counting)...

It's very *easy* to start a framework. It gets harder to hit that
80/20 point, where you're using it more than fiddling with it. It
gets *really* hard to make it general enough for others to use it
outside your direct range of experience.

For example, TemplateToolkit (on which OpenFrame is based, and
Bricolage will at least nod to, and on which Slashcode depends) took a
hella lot of work, and thus begins to be the thing everyone can use.

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I can heartily recommend the Template Toolkit if you go with a perl based
solution. I also strongly suggest not writing your own from scratch. It's
not simple at all to build a web based application server. We used the
Template Toolkit as the base for an ecommerce centric application server
(shopping cart) and it took us 6 months of development to add on everything
we needed (granted we added quite a bit). If we had not started with a
solid base like Template Toolkit, we could have added on another year easily
by the time all the bugs were worked out.

Mason is the other perl application platform I would suggest, and it's
actively developed and used on some very large sites. The main reason we
chose the Template Toolkit is because the template language is more similar
to php/asp, so our clients that use it don't have as much of a learning
curve. I wasn't personally impressed with the remaining perl based web
application frameworks when compared to Template Toolkit and Mason. They
seem to be pretty far ahead of the rest in most areas.

Personally I just don't like PHP compared to the alternatives, but that's my
own bias which is probably rooted in misinformatin, but I can live with
that:)

I do like Python. We dont' use it that much at, but we have used Zope which
is a very nice platform and it is written in Python.

Java is just too much for most small/medium sized applications. I like
Java, but it requires more resources all the way around. Java programmers
charge more, it takes more development time than say php, perl, or python to
accomplish the same thing, and in my experience it's just flat out more
expensive to develop and maintain a java application.

aolserver and tcl are nice, but there are a lot more people using
perl/python/php, which means more resources are available for those
languages any way you look at it.

Chris

Arthur> And I can assure you that there
Arthur> are many many more frameworks around. So many that I wonder

whether I

Arthur> shouldn't just write my own, it must be very simple that almost
Arthur> everyone has done so.

If I can give you some insight from the Perl world (where there are 57
different templating systems and counting)...

It's very *easy* to start a framework. It gets harder to hit that
80/20 point, where you're using it more than fiddling with it. It
gets *really* hard to make it general enough for others to use it
outside your direct range of experience.

For example, TemplateToolkit (on which OpenFrame is based, and
Bricolage will at least nod to, and on which Slashcode depends) took a
hella lot of work, and thus begins to be the thing everyone can use.

--
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0095

<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/&gt;
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl

training!

Arthur van Dorp wrote:

PHP:
phpwebapp / horde / logicreate

Ariadne

Regards
Gaetano Mendola

Arthur van Dorp wrote:

PHP:
phpwebapp / horde / logicreate

Also, don't forget the Smarty template engine (http://smarty.php.net).
Written in PHP it compiles templates into PHP.
This is my personal favourite template system, very fast and flexible.

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