Taking time to explore is rarely a a waste of time in this area, because
exploring is how you learn in programming/software engineering.
marijane white wrote:
> I may have worded that poorly, abstract reasons to choose a language was
> exactly what I was looking for.
>
> Your suggestion matches my natural inclinations, I think I just needed some
> reassurance that taking the time to explore wouldn't be a waste of time.
> Thank you. =)
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 7:13 PM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>> I realize you didn't want to start a religious war nor were you
>> interested in the abstract reasons people chose a particular language,
>> that being said...
>>
>> I honestly think choosing the best* development language is very
>> similar to how one settles on politics, religion, diet, etc.
>> Environment plays a part, of course, but, in the end, what generally
>> works best is the language that jibes best with you and your
>> personality. Since you've dabbled with several different languages,
>> you've had to have come across this - some languages just "feel
>> better" than others. This is, however, an entirely personal choice.
>>
>> Dan Chudnov, for example, seems to think in Python. When I tried
>> Python, it never really clicked -- I muddled through a few projects
>> but never really got it. I then got introduced to Ruby, everything
>> made sense, and I never looked back. I recently did a project in
>> Groovy/Grails and my takeaway was that it was a scripting language
>> that only somebody that had spent their career as a Java developer
>> could love. My coworker (who has spent his career as a Java
>> developer) LOVES Groovy. He thinks Ruby is a Fisher-Price language.
>> To each their own.
>>
>> Since you don't seem to have institutional constraints on what you can
>> develop in, I would recommend you try something like this:
>>
>> Take a handful of languages that look interesting to you and try
>> writing a simple app to take some of your data, model it and shove it
>> into Solr and make an interface to look at it. Solr's pretty perfect
>> for this sort of project: it's super simple to work with and
>> immediately gives you something powerful and versatile to wrap your
>> app around. If you can't make something useful quickly around Solr,
>> then move on to the next language because that one's not for you.
>>
>> If the ones that click happen to be PHP, Python or Ruby, well, there
>> you go. If not, I, for one, look forward to your new Lua (or
>> whatever) based discovery interface.
>>
>> Ultimately, any project you choose for your discovery interface is
>> going to require a lot of customization to make it work the way you
>> want -- the key is finding the environment that stands the least in
>> the way between turning what's in your head into a working app.
>>
>> Good luck,
>> -Ross.
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 6:04 PM, marijane white <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Greetings Code4Lib,
>>>
>>> Long time lurker, first time poster here.
>>>
>>> I've been turning over this question in my mind for a few weeks now, and
>>>
>> Joe
>>
>>> Hourcle's postscript in the Online PHP Course thread has prompted me to
>>> finally try to ask it. =)
>>>
>>> I'm interested in hearing how the members of this list have gone about
>>> choosing development platforms for their library coding projects and/or
>>> existing open source projects (ie like VuFind vs Blacklight). For
>>>
>> example,
>>
>>> did you choose a language you already were familiar with? One you wanted
>>>
>> to
>>
>>> learn more about? Does your workplace have a standard enterprise
>>> architecture/platform that you are required to use? If you have chosen
>>>
>> to
>>
>>> implement an existing open source project, did you choose based on the
>>> development platform or project maturity and features or something else?
>>>
>>> Some background -- thanks to my undergraduate computer engineering
>>>
>> studies,
>>
>>> I have a pretty solid understanding of programming fundamentals, but most
>>>
>> of
>>
>>> my pre-LIS work experience was in software testing and did not require me
>>>
>> to
>>
>>> employ much of what I learned programming-wise, so I've mostly dabbled
>>>
>> over
>>
>>> the last decade or so. I've got a bit of experience with a bunch of
>>> languages and I'm not married to any of them. I also kind of like
>>>
>> having
>>
>>> excuses to learn new ones.
>>>
>>> My situation is this: I would like to eventually implement a discovery
>>>
>> tool
>>
>>> at MPOW, but I am having a hell of a time choosing one. I'm a solo
>>> librarian on a content team at a software and information services
>>>
>> company,
>>
>>> so I'm not really tied to the platforms used by the software engineering
>>> teams here. I know a bit of Ruby, so I've played with Blacklight some,
>>>
>> got
>>
>>> it to install on Windows and managed to import a really rough Solr index.
>>> I'm more attracted to the features in VuFind, but I don't know much PHP
>>>
>> yet
>>
>>> and I haven't gotten it installed successfully yet. My collection's
>>> metadata is not in an ILS (yet) and not in MARC, so I've also considered
>>> trying out more generic approaches like ajax-solr (though I don't know a
>>>
>> lot
>>
>>> of javascript yet, either). I've also given a cursory look at SOPAC and
>>> Scriblio. My options are wide open, and I'm having a rough time deciding
>>> what direction to go in. I guess it's kind of similar to someone who is
>>>
>> new
>>
>>> to programming and attempting to choose their first language to learn.
>>>
>>> I will attempt to head off a programming language religious war =) by
>>> stating that I'm not really interested in the virtues of one platform
>>>
>> over
>>
>>> another, moreso the abstract reasons one might have for selecting one.
>>> Have any of you ever been in a similar situation? How'd you get yourself
>>> unstuck? If you haven't, what do you think you might do in a situation
>>>
>> like
>>
>>> mine?
>>>
>>>
>>> -marijane
>>>
>>>
>
>
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