Re: What's the latest thinking ofthebesttwoorthreewebdevelopment languages/environ...

Dave, I took a long hard look at the PHP books. This is what I got:

PHP5 and MySQL Bible by Converse and Park (Wiley 2004)

Programming PHP by Lerdorf, Tatroe, and MacIntyre (O'Reilly 2006) [Lerdorf is the creator of PHP]

php|architect's Guide to PHP Security by Alshanetsky (Tabini 2005)

PHP 5 Recipes by Babi et al (Apress 2005)

You may not need all of them, but I don't know which one I would not get if I had to make a choice.

I also got Zend's IDE but also just got a Linux PC and will be checking with Zend on using the license for their Java Eclipse IDE. Either way Zend provides a professional development / debugging environment that someone like us would expect.

Personally I haven't done any Net.data and don't know anything about it, but I would expect there's a difference between getting up to speed between the two because the IBM product was designed to enhance RPG UI, if you will.

Hello world doesn't really prove much of anything, and beyond that all that PHP open source is basically SQL against MySQL. SQL being what it is, different code and binders are required for whatever the target database is, the other main ones are SQL Server and Postgres, and DB2 isn't one of them out there in open source land.

Sure, with lots of work Zend has provided calls to iseries objects and DB2 database, and a MySQL front end to DB2 is coming from IBM, so all is good on that front and the more use is made of the unique capabilities of the iseries to power PHP apps better than the other 30 million sites out there the better, but if you're going to step into it deep enough for PHP I would think CGIDEV2 is the sweet spot here in power and leverage.

I am developing PHP because I have a PHP web site, because that or simple IIS serving is what's out there for shared web site servers. Anything beyond that such as Java (or RPG in our case) requires a dedicated server for a web site, so the tradeoff of interpreting script is simplicity in site management of hundreds and thousands of web sites by web hosts.

But I would think CGIDEV2 or Net.data are even simpler in our environment. The main thing people tout about PHP and Java for that matter are the function libraries. Personally, off topic, I hope we can provide functions as needed in open source RPG to provide a more powerful serving environment.

rd



Dave Odom wrote:

Mike,
The estes site looks very nice and MUCH more than what I need but its nice to know the capability is there.
I hear your words-of-wisdom vis-a-vis PHP over Net.Data. I'm still trying to make my final decision but need to experiment with both and see which one gets me going the quickest. Isn't it true that much of what is created in Net.Data will migrate to PHP? Or am I just hoping.
I wish there was a listing of all the books, etc., for each language that tells me what I need to know to get things up and running quickly. Any ideas? However, I did get all the book links for Net.Data, I think, from Vern.
Thanks,
Dave