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Choice of Language for Large-Scale Web Apps?
anyon wonders: "PHP is the most popular language for the web. eBay uses ISAPI (C), Google uses C/C++ (search), Java (gmail), and Python. Microsoft uses ASP (what else?). For small web site, it really doesn't matter. What's your take on language choice for large-scale web applications? Maybe language choice is irrelevant, only good people (developers) matter? If you can get the same good quality people, then what language you would chose? Considering the following factors: performance, scalability, extendibility, cost of development (man-month), availability of libraries, cost of libraries, development tools? Has there been a comprehensive comparison done?"
WRONG!
your choice of Language to use for the large scale website is usually determined by what the IT nimrods or management deemed as the Database backend. If you are stuck with MSSQL for your database backend then forget about anything but ASP. If you are able to use Oracle, PostgreSQL, mysql or any others that do not use a conviluted nightmare for connecting to it then use Java,PSP,Perl,Python,C, hell even assembly if you desire to torture yourself.
but if you are forced to use MSSQL then you are also forced to use ASP or ASP.NET unless you have months to dink around with special patches to compile into your favorite scripting languages to connect to MSSQL.
Personally we use a hybrid, java where it's greatest strength is , php where it's greatest strength and ASP where it is useful. with iframes I can embed an ASP page into a PHP generated portal page that has a java function as well.
picking one makes you limited, picking them all gives you power.... LOTS of power, It only makes the maintaince of that site a bit more tricky and require skilled personell to take care of it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Easier to use and deploy than J2EE :-P
that, my friend, is a lie.
beer as in "free beer"
I write web apps for a small media conglomerate in the united states. I'd say that java is a pretty poor choice. I have yet to see a java app that wasn't as clunky and slow as all get out. On the backend, these days, you might as well use php/perl/anything but java, because, well, it's still slow as butt, and really where the real cutting-edge stuff is being done is in javascript/client-side stuff anyway.
for example: gmail, google maps, etc.
Call me a troll, but I took the original java for a test drive back in 96, and have yet to be impressed by it.