Hi. I've got the task of creating a prototype for a web based project. We started with PHP using absolutely no framework and it has finally got to the point where is is insanely messy.
The question was whether we should move to a PHP framework, .NET, java or Rails.
What we need is something that allows for rapid development but with the capability of adding reporting, charts and other services at a later date.
The problem is each technology/language have their strengths and weakness. Rails is allows for faster development and enforces some coding conventions but has no good third party support when it comes to reporting compared to .NET.
The question is, is it feasible to have a primarily Rails front end and then have separate .NET applications to handle things such as reporting and web based charts? How do the Rails and .NET applications communicate with each other? Is it through SOAP and/or ReST.
This has all come about because it was suggested that we just use .NET but I'm concerned that the dev time is going to be too long, thus I want to go with Rails. But I can also see some of Rail's limitation so was wondering if it can be overcome with using some web protocols.
I'm still getting to grips with all this so please fire away with comments and suggestions.
Cheers
A lot of the web charts and reports that are generated aren't cached or saved somewhere in most .Net programs, they're generated on the fly. Some 3rd party tools allow you to do this in the background and save them, but most don't. Your best bet is probably to use a Windows based platform and simply mix ASP.Net pages in with your Rails website.
Personally I wouldn't waste time mixing them, I'd just go with ASP.Net. I honestly don't know where people get the disillusion idea that making website in ASP.Net requires countless hours of time, because in reality, if you know at least a basic concepts behind ASP.Net you can create web pages in a very short amount of time.