A big project

[Mike Novecento]

Hi everybody,
I am going to start a new company in a little while. The company will
be founded when the first project will be in the alpha version. Several
other projects will be done in future. My problem is determing what
platform I should use.

I know how to program in several languages but ignore this for the
moment.
I am going to start a big project like blogger.com, flickr.com,
cragilists or something like that. The fact that the project will be
(hopefully) popular implies security issues and application
stress/scaling issues as well.
For these reasons, I need to be very careful on the choise of the web
development platform. I have 3 candidates:

- PHP
- Ruby on Rails
- ASP.NET

My aim is SPEED OF DEVELOPMENT, LOW TIME TO LEARN THE TECHNOLOGY and
APPLICATION STRENGHT (to security and to scalability issues).

Could you tell me what do you think of these 3 technologies for my
needs. I am tempted by Ruby, but lots of people says it is not mature
enough. Php, they say is not so secure and robust. ASP.NET I need 2
years of study and 4000 pages, for doing an hello world (ok I am
overestimating ).

Can you help me? Tell me your comments?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

PS: THANK-YOU, it is very important for my future the choise of
platform for my company.

 

[Oliver Wong]

I am going to start a new company in a little while. The company will
be founded when the first project will be in the alpha version. Several
other projects will be done in future. My problem is determing what
platform I should use.

There are actually many problems with this post.

I know how to program in several languages but ignore this for the
moment.

So why mention it?

I am going to start a big project like blogger.com, flickr.com,
cragilists or something like that. The fact that the project will be
(hopefully) popular implies security issues and application
stress/scaling issues as well.
For these reasons, I need to be very careful on the choise of the web
development platform. I have 3 candidates:

- PHP
- Ruby on Rails
- ASP.NET

You posted this on an ASP.NET newsgroup. What kind of responces are you
expecting?

My aim is SPEED OF DEVELOPMENT, LOW TIME TO LEARN THE TECHNOLOGY and
APPLICATION STRENGHT (to security and to scalability issues).

An old engineering adage: "Cheap, fast, robust; pick two."

Could you tell me what do you think of these 3 technologies for my
needs. I am tempted by Ruby, but lots of people says it is not mature
enough. Php, they say is not so secure and robust. ASP.NET I need 2
years of study and 4000 pages, for doing an hello world (ok I am
overestimating ).

If you need 2 years of study and 4000 pages (presumably to read) for
doing "Hello World", then you'd probably be better off hiring someone to
code your "big project" for you.

Can you help me? Tell me your comments?
PS: THANK-YOU, it is very important for my future the choise of
platform for my company.

Why make your company platform specific?

Why found a company, and THEN start worrying about learning a
programming language to actually implement the products you're dreaming of?

Your business plan does not sound very serious or realistic.

- Oliver

 

[S. Justin Gengo]

Mike,

I haven't used Ruby or PHP so I can't give an opinion. I can tell you that I
like ASP.NET and have been using it since it was in Beta and will continue
to do so. It is very robust and allows me to do anything I've ever thought
of. (Although maybe I don't think of doing very hard things...)

My suggestion is that you invest a little bit of time coding in .NET. There
are some very good tutorials at: www.gotdotnet.com; click the "Toolbox" link
on the bottom left.

I think if you use .NET a little you'll get a good feel for if you like it
or not. Really, everyone has their favorite way of doing things. I've
noticed it's hard to sway a Java developer away from java, likewise I've
tried programming with Java but still prefer .NET. Maybe that will change
someday, but really it only matters if you like the language you pick (Since
you're founding the company).

--
Sincerely,

S. Justin Gengo, MCP
Web Developer / Programmer

www.aboutfortunate.com

"Out of chaos comes order."
Nietzsche

 

[Mike Novecento]

So why mention it?

I mention this, just to explain that I need to go in depth with one
platform or another, but I don't actually need to learn how to program.
I also mentioned this to avoid answers like "go with the one that you
know the best".

You posted this on an ASP.NET newsgroup. What kind of responces are you
expecting?

Is this a Christian newsgroup? I don't think so. This is a newsgroup
frequented by intelligent persons, specialized in ASP.NET for sure,
with a biased vision, but this doesn't mean that I should expect a
religious answer "ASP.NET is the salvation... Code and thou shall be
saved".
I am expecting a biased vision on the subject, with some insight from
people with more experience than me in this platform. I am expecting
answers about what are the pro/con of ASP.NET.

An old engineering adage: "Cheap, fast, robust; pick two."

Good Oliver, I think I can agree with this one. Which of the two is
ASP.NET?

If you need 2 years of study and 4000 pages (presumably to read) for
doing "Hello World", then you'd probably be better off hiring someone to
code your "big project" for you.

I used an inappropriate "exagerration" just to say... learning ASP.NET,
I believe, requires lots of time investment, probably more than the
other 2 platforms. At the best of my knowledge, ASP.NET, ADO.NET and
SQL Server are not really quick to learn properly.

Why make your company platform specific?

Probably it won't be platform specific, maybe we will diversify
eventually. But at the moment, I need to "invest" in knoweledge and
start our first project. Once the project is live, we can see what will
be the best platform for the future. Obviously, If I spend 6 months on
a project in ASP.NET, it is possible that I want to use the skills
aquired and maybe also the code, for other projects.

Why found a company, and THEN start worrying about learning a
programming language to actually implement the products you're dreaming of?

I plan to work on the project for about 4 months... then, when the
project is almost ready, found the company.

Thanks for your input anyway Oliver,
Mike

 

[Guest]

I've done PHP for fun and academically and .Net professionally. I don't think
the learning curve on producing serious .Net apps is any greater than PHP. If
you're into "drag and drop" programming (which I'm not, and incidentally will
not build you a very good "big project") you can do "hello world" in .Net
with Visual Studio in about 3 seconds.

However, having done a web platform conversion choice with a company, the
language is not really your deciding factor. You should also look at things
like: future of the technology (how long will it be around?), what's the cost
of the technology (are there server or IDE licenses or expenses?),
availability of skilled people (are there a lot of people trained in this
technology, or is it hard to find people?), technology support (how easy is
it to get support when, not if, something goes wrong with the platform),
etc...

Just some thoughts...

 

[Oliver Wong]

Oliver Wong wrote:

I mention this, just to explain that I need to go in depth with one
platform or another, but I don't actually need to learn how to program.
I also mentioned this to avoid answers like "go with the one that you
know the best".

Actually, I think "go with the one that you know best" is probably good
advice, but I'm a bit confused. You say you don't actually need to learn how
to program implying that you're not actually going to be the one programming
your big project? If not, then start looking around for someone who will
program the big project for you and ask them what platform they want to use.
It makes no sense to declare "My company shall use Ruby!" and then post lots
of help-wanted ads which gathers no replies because everyone near where you
live programs in PHP, for example.

Good Oliver, I think I can agree with this one. Which of the two is
ASP.NET?

Hmm, that's a tough one. I guess I'd have to go with fast (as in
performance of the web app) and robust, especially when compared against PHP
(I don't have much experience with web development in Ruby). PHP is usually
interpreted (though you can purchase "code accelerators" for it) while
ASP.NET is compiled. PHP's object oriented hack is a big mess, while ASP.NET
can be coded in C# which has a relatively good implementation of OO. On the
other hand, I'm not sure that OO and Web Applications are the best match. I
think we need a new paradigm for developping web applications, but that's a
discussion for another time.

I used an inappropriate "exagerration" just to say... learning ASP.NET,
I believe, requires lots of time investment, probably more than the
other 2 platforms. At the best of my knowledge, ASP.NET, ADO.NET and
SQL Server are not really quick to learn properly.

This is a good reason to "go with the one you know best".

- Oliver

 

[Mark Rae]

Can you help me? Tell me your comments?

If you're even having to ask this question, I'd suggest that you give up,
buy a tractor and hire yourself out as a freelance farm labourer...

 

[Mike Novecento]

buy a tractor and hire yourself out as a freelance farm labourer.

I have a Master in Computer Science and I have been developing (not for
the web) for the last 8 years. But I am humble and I ask, peraphs silly
questions, trying to understand something new. Ah and Mark... please go
**** yourself.

 

[sreejith.ram]

Not sure why some of the replys are a bit offensive

Any ways, I prefer to go with Andy's suggestions. You may need to
consider other factors before the language

ASP.NET is not at all difficult to learn. Also there is a lot more help
and support documentations available than the other 2, I beleive. But
some thing to remeber is that the easy drag and drop programming in
ASP.NET will not make a scalable reliable big project.

 

[Oliver Wong]

ASP.NET is not at all difficult to learn. Also there is a lot more help
and support documentations available than the other 2, I beleive.

I have to disagree with this. The documentation I've seen for ASP.NET
(via http://http://msdn.microsoft.com/) is decent, but I find the document
for PHP (via http://www.php.net/) to be excellent, particularly because of
the "user comment" section. People are allowed to comment on the
documentation, thus making it obvious to the documentation maintainer what
aspects of the document are unclear, and to correct them.

- Oliver