On 1/1/2011 2:34 PM, Grant wrote:
I'm sorry this is OT but I really value the opinion of many people
subscribed to this list.
I'm starting a new project that is quite straightforward and will
interface with an old project. The only point of contact between the
two projects might be both of them having access to the same database
table. The old project is written in a language that is related to
perl so I can imagine there would be some benefit to using perl for
the new project. Am I foolish to start a new project in perl at this
stage in its lifecycle? I won't be doing the coding myself and I
wonder if I would be better off with PHP since more coders seem to be
familiar with PHP than perl.
In '99 I worked with a fellow who styled himself a software architect.
The first step of each project he managed involved stating "We will
write this software in Java." As you can imagine that's sorta backwards.
I'd spec the software function, features, etc and then decide which
language has better tools or command of the problem space. You will have
to balance that against your knowledge of the language and the developer
skills you have access to. However even the exercise of deciding "Python
appears to be the superior language in this problem space, but we're
going to go with Perl because the database module for our db already
exists and is much more mature. Bob knows Perl better too." is worth
doing because it helps define the scope of the project.
FWIW the current startup I'm at is using Ruby for the front end and
it's been a bit more work that PHP which is what the last company used.
That's partly Rails immaturity, our lack of experience with Ruby, and
having to learn the Rails/Ruby way. Unless the language you're familiar
with is completely unsuitable, I'd say familiarity trumps language
features. YMMV.
kashani
