selecting a language

[mpinsley]

We are a software company that provides Inventory & Procurement
mangement to the hospitality industry. For the past twenty years we
have been using Progress Software as both the development language and
the underlying database. We are in the process of exploring new
languages to write our application in, as Progress is becoming
expensive for us.

Here are some of our issues

1. Progress is a 4GL language so it is very rapid development. We would
like something that is as fast or faster

2. We would like to be somewhat database agnostic but we are leaning
towards using MS SQL - Progress was an embedded database so it was very
easy to maintain (any suggestions here...are there other good embedded
databases)

3. We will probably (Eventually) be creating web services. It would be
nice if once we learn a language that we could easily use that language
to both CREATE webservices as well as use them (once again rapid
development is important)

4. Since we were using a 4GL lanaguage we are looking for tools that
will help us with a lot of the code development (suggestions? I have
seen YesSoftware and it looks pretty good)

5. We want something that is OO and runs quickly

6. Our current app is developed in a rich GUI interface. It is similar
in nature to an applet where only the Form that is required is
downloaded to the clients local machine. Otherwise everything remains
on the server (thus making it easy to send updates to our clients). Can
we develop in a way that we can eaisly provide both a rich interface as
well as a web interface?

8. There seems to be a large community of Jave users (is that correct).
Are there a number of user groups in the US?

9. We will eventually be providing multi-language capabilities...does
Java support this?

10. We need a language that is easy to learn and can provide us with
good connections to databases

11. What are the posatives and negatives of using Java?

12. If you were chosing between C#, Java and PHP which one would you go
with and why (good and bad of both)

13. We are interested in cross platform capabilities. Today most of our
customers use Windows, so this is not a critical feature, but since you
never know exactly what the futre brings it would be nice to go either
way

14. Does anyone know of a web based open source inventory managment or
ERP application? Something with a lot of depth to it that is currently
being used in a manufacturing environment?

Any insight you can provide on selecting the next language for us would
be appreciated. Also we need to take in to consideration the total cost
of deploying the application, including webservers, datbases, etc.

This is a big decision for us, so I appologize for such a lenghty post.

 

[Wibble]

We are a software company that provides Inventory & Procurement
mangement to the hospitality industry. For the past twenty years we
have been using Progress Software as both the development language and
the underlying database. We are in the process of exploring new
languages to write our application in, as Progress is becoming
expensive for us.

Here are some of our issues

1. Progress is a 4GL language so it is very rapid development. We would
like something that is as fast or faster

2. We would like to be somewhat database agnostic but we are leaning
towards using MS SQL - Progress was an embedded database so it was very
easy to maintain (any suggestions here...are there other good embedded
databases)

3. We will probably (Eventually) be creating web services. It would be
nice if once we learn a language that we could easily use that language
to both CREATE webservices as well as use them (once again rapid
development is important)

4. Since we were using a 4GL lanaguage we are looking for tools that
will help us with a lot of the code development (suggestions? I have
seen YesSoftware and it looks pretty good)

5. We want something that is OO and runs quickly

6. Our current app is developed in a rich GUI interface. It is similar
in nature to an applet where only the Form that is required is
downloaded to the clients local machine. Otherwise everything remains
on the server (thus making it easy to send updates to our clients). Can
we develop in a way that we can eaisly provide both a rich interface as
well as a web interface?

8. There seems to be a large community of Jave users (is that correct).
Are there a number of user groups in the US?

9. We will eventually be providing multi-language capabilities...does
Java support this?

10. We need a language that is easy to learn and can provide us with
good connections to databases

11. What are the posatives and negatives of using Java?

12. If you were chosing between C#, Java and PHP which one would you go
with and why (good and bad of both)

13. We are interested in cross platform capabilities. Today most of our
customers use Windows, so this is not a critical feature, but since you
never know exactly what the futre brings it would be nice to go either
way

14. Does anyone know of a web based open source inventory managment or
ERP application? Something with a lot of depth to it that is currently
being used in a manufacturing environment?

Any insight you can provide on selecting the next language for us would
be appreciated. Also we need to take in to consideration the total cost
of deploying the application, including webservers, datbases, etc.

This is a big decision for us, so I appologize for such a lenghty post.

It looks to me like you made up your mind about YesSoftware & C# and are
just looking for validation that M$ (TheDevilYouKnow) is better than
Java (the devil you dont know). Given that you want to integrate with
MS SQL, deploy to Windows customers, build 'WebServices' and be able
to quote all the M$ buzzwords, this is a just a silly exercise in due
diligence.

The feature set of .Net and YesSoftware is exactly what you want. The
fact that its buggy, slow, and generally sucks probably doesn't matter.

Java is going to give you alot less out of the box, but you can
customize it to do what you want, and it can be made much more reliable.
The java code can be run pretty much anywhere, and its free. You'll
need more of a clue to use it.

Give up on the notion of database agnostic. You'll just waste the
best features of whatever database you use and perform poorly
everywhere. Portability is still a myth in databases, unless you dont
care about performance.

 

[MARK]

In fact we really havn't decided what direction to go. - YesSoftware
and Ironside are the only one I found that seem to have a following
(need more research though). PHP looked like a possible alternative.
But Java seems to have the most flexibility.

I have been looking for a good way to do an evaluation of different
languages.

I found this:
http://archive.adaic.com/docs/reports/lawlis/tables.htm

Which seems to be pretty good, but i still am loking for input from
those who use the language the most. Which seems like it would be this
forum

Thanks

 

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

We are a software company that provides Inventory & Procurement
mangement to the hospitality industry. For the past twenty years we
have been using Progress Software as both the development language and
the underlying database. We are in the process of exploring new
languages to write our application in, as Progress is becoming
expensive for us.

Please take advocacy language discussions to comp.lang.java.advocacy.
F'up set.


/Thomas

 

[Gerbrand van Dieijen]

(e-mail address removed) schreef:

We are a software company that provides Inventory & Procurement
mangement to the hospitality industry. For the past twenty years we
have been using Progress Software as both the development language and
the underlying database. We are in the process of exploring new
languages to write our application in, as Progress is becoming
expensive for us.

Here are some of our issues

1. Progress is a 4GL language so it is very rapid development. We would
like something that is as fast or faster

A great advantage of Java or any 3GL OO language is, that you can very
well created structructed, modular code. It's much easier to seperate
business-logic, database access from GUI code.
This may seem slower at first but the great advantage is that your much
better reuse existing code. Also it is easier to (automatically) test
software. If your project is to be developed and maintained for a long
time, this is a must.

2. We would like to be somewhat database agnostic but we are leaning
towards using MS SQL - Progress was an embedded database so it was very
easy to maintain (any suggestions here...are there other good embedded
databases)

Even a 4GL enviroment (at least like Progress) won't free you from the
need to create a good database design, or optimilizations like indices.

3. We will probably (Eventually) be creating web services. It would be
nice if once we learn a language that we could easily use that language
to both CREATE webservices as well as use them (once again rapid
development is important)

Java has a lot of built in support for it. You could use something like
webmethods (http://www.webmethods.com) too (I never used it).

4. Since we were using a 4GL lanaguage we are looking for tools that
will help us with a lot of the code development (suggestions? I have
seen YesSoftware and it looks pretty good)

I use JBuilder, sometimes combined with Dreamweaver.

5. We want something that is OO and runs quickly

I'd say it is more important the code is robust and scaleable.

6. Our current app is developed in a rich GUI interface. It is similar
in nature to an applet where only the Form that is required is
downloaded to the clients local machine. Otherwise everything remains
on the server (thus making it easy to send updates to our clients). Can
we develop in a way that we can eaisly provide both a rich interface as
well as a web interface?

Yes, DHTML gives you a lot possibilities nowadays. You could look at the
various Google applications like gmail and googlemaps.

8. There seems to be a large community of Jave users (is that correct).
Are there a number of user groups in the US?

All people (involved in developing) that I speak face to face live
within 100 kilometers of my home. For all other people that I 'speak', I
don't care if they live 200 kilometers or 2000 kilometers away.
Anyway, also in Europe Java is big.

9. We will eventually be providing multi-language capabilities...does
Java support this?

Do you mean multiple spoken languages? Java has good support for this.

10. We need a language that is easy to learn and can provide us with
good connections to databases

JDO would be a very good option in my opionion.
I use JDOGenie. It is very easy to use.
Using JDO, you can use Java-objects that are stored and loaded from a
database transparantly.
Manually entering SQL code isn't needed.
Also JDOGenie (as well as other JDO-implementations) are a lot cheaper
than Progress, although they do a much better job to my opinion.

11. What are the posatives and negatives of using Java?

I'd say, search the web and google.

12. If you were chosing between C#, Java and PHP which one would you go
with and why (good and bad of both)

Well, considering the newsgroup I'd see Java, but I wouldn't rule out C#.

13. We are interested in cross platform capabilities. Today most of our
customers use Windows, so this is not a critical feature, but since you
never know exactly what the futre brings it would be nice to go either
way

When you create a DHTML (webinterface) to your application, this
wouldn't matter.

14. Does anyone know of a web based open source inventory managment or
ERP application? Something with a lot of depth to it that is currently
being used in a manufacturing environment?

You could search http://www.freshmeat.net or http://www.sourceforge.net
However, if you want to have an ERP application: rather than developing
your self, you can use existing ERP applications like Exact, SAP,
Naviles, etc.
Although this may seem more expensive first, eventually it will be a lot
cheaper than developing, maintaining and supporting your own application.