Advice on which tool / language for a small project

[cojeda]

Hi,

I have been asked to build a basic online survey which collects the results in a DB.

I am new to web development. I would appriate your recommendations as to the best language or tool and database for the job. Best meaning easiest for somebody like myself with no backgroup. If other tools / language would be easier, then please reommend them as well.

Servers
o Apache web server on Linux OS

Possible tools / language
o Adobe
o HTML
o Macromedia Coldfusion
o Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
o Macromedia Studio MX
o Microsoft FrontPage
o PHP

Thank you!

 

[vacunita]

I'd say PHP is a good choice. For Db I'd suggest Mysql.
Its relatively easy to learn, and to interact with from PHP.
And under certain conditions it may be free. Look into their Licensing Terms in their website for specifics.

Dreaweaver can be a handy tool, but don't fully depend on it. Don't be afraid to dive into the code, and learn how to code hands on.

There are many tutorials in the web for PHP and mysql and forms.

Also if you need more help there's always the PHP forum here on Tek-Tips. forum434. I'm sure we can help you out there if you need it.

Stay away from FrontPage, I've heard horror stories about it. And I personally don;t like the amount of unnecessary garbage it adds to the pages it creates.
Can't comment on Coldfusion. but anything you need to do can be accomplished through PHP.



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[cojeda]

Thanks for the advice...I have been poking around looking at PHP code scripts on the web. My background is programming mostly in T-SQL and PL/SQL. I did web development back in the old days when it was mostly static (HTML).

Chris

 

[tsp1lrk72]

I've used ColdFusion- it's pretty cool, it's a tag based language- very powerful; we had a lot of apps written in it, fairly easy to learn... I prefer the Adobe (Macromedia) products due to their abilities to work well with one another, like Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks-- Dreamweaver as environment allows you to build with alot of languages like PHP, ASP, ASP.NET etc... Use the code part more than the GUI to learn...

 

[lebisol]

I can pretty much second vacunita post....especially about Front Page...agh.

Cold fusion is a bit of an overkill (IMHO) for a small project.

ASP- M$ world and as such...but never the less great language as well although geared towards MSSQL and generally something that integrates nicely into MS structure/network back end and other windoz based apps.

PHP is free...and will work great on your server.

To be devil's advocate...depends how big your project may become in feature.
In my eyes, although not a php guy,PHP+MySQL seems like a great fit while DW is the best editor out there. You can customize to your own needs and even make it work with languages not so common and not listed in here.


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