Web programming tools

[andu]

The secret for such a product to be successful, if a simple mechanism 
deserves a fancy name, is to look at what exactly it does: receives data, 
it processes and stores it; and upon request it retrieves stored data, does 
some processing if necessary and presents it to the user. I've seen all 
kinds of fancy definitions and combinations of languages, intermediary 
products and mostly noise about what I described above, either free and 
with a cult like following or extremely expensive with a corporate flavor. 
Recently I read a full page ("white paper") in small type describing a 
revolutionary new product, a calendar, which if I remember correctly has 
been in use for several thousand years.
Bottom line is that all that is needed is a database, a processing and 
transport engine an a presentation tool. If the amount of data is not large 
and a browser is not demanded, metacard could do all 3 of them, otherwise a 
database and a web server need to be added. My general principle is to use 
as few components as possible to minimize the breaking points.
Languages like PHP have the great advantage of being able to talk to 
several databases, work as Apache modules and be free, the great 
disadvantage is that you have to learn them, most of us didn't even finish 
with metatalk.


Regards, Andu Novac