What's the best way to go if you want to create graphs on-the-fly by pulling data out of a database? PHP would be the most handy, but I've heard some good things about python.
What's the most efficient method for dynamic graphs ?
Surely the process would be driven by what server-side technology you have available to you, rather than what is most efficient?
I can't imagine that you'd switch hosts to someone that, for example, provided a .Net solution if you were coding a PHP site simply because the .Net libraries might be marginally better than the PHP ones?
Really, I think one server-side graphics library is probably much like another... I doubt you'll find one that is overly more efficient than another... so let your hosting requirements drive the choice, rather than your choice driving the hosting requirements.
If you're looking to produce bar charts, I think it's best to build them from standard html (albeit dynamically generated). If you do it properly, it'll be accessible to people who can't see images. See the thread already alluded to.
If you want pie charts and other more graphically complex stuff, you'll need to build it server-side. My advice would be to use whatever language - perl, php, asp, etc. - you're familiar with, and search for existing libraries that you can use. For example, if you're using PHP,
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