please comment on technologies

[Alex Martelli]

luc wastiaux wrote:

> Hello, I am writing the specifications for a school project (the subject
> is free for us to choose), I was thinking about doing a news-server
> archive database just like google groups, but on a smaller scale (it would
> only archive a limited number of newsgroup, not all of USENET). I got this
> idea because my school uses a news server and a lot of valuable
> information is lost when old messages are erased from the server's spool.

Sounds like a cool and feasible idea to me.


> The project would be developped by a group of 4 to 6 CS students
> (including me), over a three months timespan (but not full time, we have
> to go to classes and other stuff)

The most valuable thing you'll learn will be how to structure your
work.  I heartily recommend incremental development (most crucial
features first), test-driven design, pair programming, and a healthy
diffidence towards "big design up front" - you may get the temptation
of designing in some big chunks of infrastructure preparing for future
enhancements... that may never come.


> I have a small experience with web stuff, but mostly with PHP, and some
> perl. and I'm learning python right now.
> 
> I'm (almost) sure we will make use of python as the main language, and use

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

> either Mysql or postgresql for the database (I'm familiar with mysql but
> maybe it's too limited for what I want to do?). I just found out about

MySQL has limitations, but it's reasonably fast and simple for use
within its limitations.  You might want to program most of your app
to a "database engine independent layer" -- so you could start using
MySQL but still be able to easily switch to e.g. PostgreSQL if you
do turn out to need something that's a problem in MySQL, eg. Views.

> Spyce today and it looks like I could use it for the web interface.

Sure, that's one possibility.  Personally I'd choose Webware, which
offers an amount of flexibility I appreciate, but Spyce's OK too.

> Then I have this idea about using XSL for templating, the idea is not only
> to separate the data from the representation, but also allow programmers
> to "leech off" the search engine (it's easier to do this if the output is
> XML).

The ability for other programmers to send "queries" to your search
engine and get XML output is good.  However, personally, I would avoid
XSL (unless you guys are already well familiar with it -- or NEED to
get very familiar with it anyway to pursue your studies).  It's simpler
to have separate URLs, or a form field requesting XML or HTML output,
and just use different templates with the same contents -- doing your
templating in Cheetah (or preppy/Spyce/whatever).


Alex