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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 > > >