>From your project description, and at the risk of being buried in an avalanche of skunks criticisms, I'd say: forget the over-engineering, start simple. Scale issues can be fixed later, if that will ever be necessary. And take advantage of feedback-loops from users by releasing early and often. All this is community wisdom:
  1. Release early and release often : http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html
  2. Simplicity is the most important consideration in a design. : http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
  3. Scale, generality or completeness are NOT unqualified virtues: http://www.shirky.com/writings/situated_software.html
saidi


On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 12:18 PM, wesley kirinya <kiriinya2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
Ogure, Dude,
 
After reading your reasons:
 
1. It seems like this system will be large. I suggest making sure the Requirements, Architecture and Design are well in place, even before choosing the programming language. Infact with the above in place, choosing the language is simple as all you have to look at are the pros and cons of each.
 
2. For what it's worth: I recommend servlet/java. Your main issue with this system will be implementing 'Business Logic', unlike systems like Flickr or Twitter. PhP is not typesafe nor is it object oriented.
O_O


--- On Tue, 9/1/09, Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] PHP vs Servlets/JSP
To: "Skunkworks forum" <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke>, write2ogush@gmail.com
Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2009, 3:20 PM


I don't think the technology is the problem. You will need to answer

  1. Is the team doing the design good?
  2. Is the design good (does it cater for concurrency, contention, redundancy, high load etc)
  3. Is the team doing the development good, organized and able to work as a team?
  4. Is there a project manager and a team lead?
  5. In light of the above is the remaining time realistic to do the work?
If the answer to any of these is no then it won't matter what language you use -- you're in trouble either way.