[ILUG] [OT] Perl vs php? & Servlets/xml

[Fintan Ryan]

> Just curious as to why you specified "non-critical databases" - do you 
only use
> MySQL for non-critical stuff ? If so, what do you use for critical stuff 
? I
> can appreciate using Oracle or something with transaction support for 
e-commerce
> although I'm not sure that I wouldn't just use MySQL anyway - I've found 
it solid
> as a rock, though I sacrifice chickens daily in hopes of hastening the 
arrival of
> sub-selects.

As far as critical v's non critical goes where I am, we use Oracle (8.0.5 
on  2.2.5-22smp kernel, redhat 6) for all production level systems, but for 
internal group stuff mysql is the (well is my) chosen db.

MySql is okay, but little things like no 'proper' foreign keys, limited 
constraint checks and of course the above mentioned lack of sub-selects 
make it a bit of a pain in the ass. Actually does MySql have support for 
aliases?

On the perl v's php thing, personally I'm using php for any dynamic web 
stuff that I need to do. Its easy and very intuitive, has lots of support 
which you can compile in (my current config contains MySql, Oracle and perl 
like regexps, which is enough to make me happy). I'm still using perl quite 
a lot in most projects, but now its for things like admin scripts, mail 
scripts etc. All things that can be croned.

If you're going to be doing a lot of web based stuff, particularly database 
driven stuff, look at php, but if your just doing a few quick hacks and 
small cgi scripts go with perl.

On a different note, I haven't done much with servlets as of yet, has 
anyone been using them, say in an xml type context? On the xml note, has 
anyone got around to testing the apache xml stuff yet, going to do it this 
week, but I'd be interested in any opinions people have on it so far.

l8r,
Fintan

Fintan Ryan	  fryan at emg.ie        http://www.emg.ie
    it's more important to do it right than to do it quickly