What the best programming language (including scripting languages) to
launch an Open-Source Enterprise Application Project from Latin
America?
Please consider:
- Potencial size of developer community (How many programmers are
there today and from here in 2-5 years for the different languages?)
- Geographic distribution of developer community (Does the potencial
size of the developer communities - as defined above - vary in
different regions and countries?)
- Adoptability (Are certain languages more likely to be used by open
source communities? Is there rejections for certain languages? Are
there programming languages that are very popular among open source
projects?)
Please provide numbers, sources and examples that back up the answers.
A final logical conslusion is welcome. |
Request for Question Clarification by
mathtalk-ga
on
10 Aug 2004 20:24 PDT
Hi, edbong123-ga:
I'd love to give you a pat Answer, and maybe another Researcher can do
it! But I'm thinking that some primary consideration has to be given
to the technology platform and the application functionality before a
"best" programming language can be identified.
Certainly open source development has made a big impact on companies
like IBM that market to the "enterprise" application arena, and it's
natural to think about languages popular with the open source movement
(like C, Java, Python) in connection with "how do we build it" plans.
But bright programmers can and do learn new languages (and much else)
all the time, so I'd be reluctant to project out a specific language
as holding a strong advantage over a 2-5 year horizon. Trends in
languages, maybe. But not a specific programming language.
Maybe it's the crowd I run with, but geographic limitations would seem
to me the least of considerations for open source development. Going
to Sourceforge, one meets enthusiasts from around the world. Perhaps
the best use of a Latin American focus is in thinking about strengths
and weaknesses of platforms (including operating systems environments)
for "localization".
regards, mathtalk-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
edbong123-ga
on
11 Aug 2004 07:29 PDT
Hi mathtalk-ga,
We have been developing up to know on .NET. Now for us it would be the
easiest (from an experience perspective) to stay on it. Now my major
concern is that .Net based open-source projects might tend to get
rejected by the Open Source community.
Do you have any experience with that?
Do you have any numbers or regarding .NET based Open Source projects?
Are there any succesfull cases?
Cheers
|
Request for Question Clarification by
mathtalk-ga
on
12 Aug 2004 07:32 PDT
When you say .Net, do you mean the proprietary Microsoft .Net
Framework or the open source .Net development platform called Mono?
http://www.mono-project.com/about/index.html
regards,
mathtalk-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
edbong123-ga
on
12 Aug 2004 09:05 PDT
We were looking at Mono... but we have 0 experience with it.
Is it stable, fast reliable enough?
Are there already .Net projects on mono that are worth mentioning?
Cheers
Tim
|
Request for Question Clarification by
mathtalk-ga
on
13 Aug 2004 19:05 PDT
I'm not advocating Mono as an "enterprise" capable development
platform, but I'm trying to understand what you referred to as ".NET
based Open Source projects".
Open Source development projects, almost by definition, use Open
Source development tools. I suppose there is some wiggle room, as for
example one might build Windows versions of open source software. But
even though Windows is a proprietary operating system, there are
compilers and other development tools available for that platform that
are open source licensed.
Unless you were specifically asking about Mono (an open source
implementation of the CLI specifications submitted by Microsoft), I'd
rule out .Net based Open Source projects as a contradiction in terms.
To get a feel for what technologies are currently "attractive" for
open source development, one can browse around Sourceforge.net and
discover what's hot. It's lost a bit of its momentum, but Java has
some major corporate backing from Sun (flush from a cash settlement
with Microsoft) and IBM (who recently donated a Java-based
enterprise-ready database engine to the cause).
I'm not personally a Java aficionado, so take my opinions with a grain
of salt. But depending on what exactly you intend to build, some
combination of a scripting language like Python for the application
framework together with C/C++ implementations at lower levels could
give you a phenomenal performance edge over a pure Java
implementation. Such mixed language projects are certainly within the
Open Source "tradition".
The key would be hearing more from you about "what exactly you intend
to build". If you are aiming to build a relational database
management system, it would require very different development tools
(and skills) from building a Web portal for B2B Web services. Yet
both could well be termed "enterprise applications".
According to Russell Pavlicek's "evangelical" book:
[Embracing Insanity - Open Source Software Development]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672319896?v=glance
what make the Open Source Movement tick as a business reality is not
favored languages but a culture of recognizing individual
contributions and the group cooperation that follows from that.
regards, mathtalk-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
edbong123-ga
on
16 Aug 2004 07:16 PDT
Hi mathtalk,
thanks a lot for your comments and clarifications.
Regarding to what we want to build. It is kind of a CRM platform that
uses a meta-data-model to define its DB structure to maintain
flexibility. Its very DB intense and currently uses a lot of code on
the user interface that requires the end user to run windows on the
client. It also uses plenty of stored proceedures at this point.
What do you recommend? Python and C? What about PHP?
Have you had any experience with Mono? Do you know any succesfull mono
OS projects? IS itstable?
Cheers
|
