Choosing a Development Platform
I have pondered over this for some time now. After narrowing my choices down to three I have decided on the Microsoft .NET platform.
Up until now I had considered Linux/PHP and Linux/Python with a MySQL backend, however I will now go the .NET and MSSQL route. Some of you maybe thinking I am mental and don’t know what I am going on about so I will mention some of the reasons for my choice.
While I am proficient and love working with Linux I have never coded in PHP or Python for a deployed solution, this would be a steep learning curve although a very enjoyable one but would starve me of precious time.
I have designed, developed, tested and deployed a Anticoagulant blood management system to manage dosing of warfarin to patients. This serves thousands of patients in a hospital environment and is considered mission critical as it can cause multiple deaths if errors occur. I used C# .NET 1.1 at the time with a Intersystems Cache (MUMPS) backend.
As part of my day job I also manage over 20+ MSSQL Servers, I feel really confident around the database engine, it’s very scalable, fast and manageable.
I do feel that the above points alone quantify why I am using the .NET platform. It’s also fun and I enjoy developing with it. It’s far superior (in my opinion) than anything else on the market when it comes to a complete development and debugging environment for web applications.
My application will however be developed with change in mind, I will be creating logical layers of separation to my application. This will enable me to change the data store without having to change my entire application should I wish to do so at later date.
One final note - www.plentyoffish.com runs .NET with 1 server and is in the top 10 sites with the most traffic. I think that speaks volumes for the platform. Joel Spolsky and the guys at Fog Creek also use it and they rock.
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Good luck with your choice, sounds like it will work out well for you. But PlentyOfFish runs just 1 server? That’s hard to believe. Can you cite a source? I’m really curious.
Comment by Carlos — September 6, 2007 #
I thought someone might ask this question. I got it right here from Marcus the founder of plentyoffish.
Thanks for the comments Carlos
Comment by Tony — September 6, 2007 #
I see. Well, 2 chips with quad cores and 8GB of ram is a pretty hefty machine. Marcus seems pretty clear this is his one and only Web server machine…from the comments, he has some kind of second machine serving the database.
Personally, I’m in the MySQL and PHP camp. More PHP than anything else. You cite a learning curve…I’d simply say using PHP to do something is a breeze. Using it well (perhaps with a framework), does take a little wisdom.
Comment by Carlos — September 7, 2007 #
You’re mental and don’t know what you’re going on about! M$SQL scalable? Humbug I say.
Comment by Rob — September 20, 2007 #