Picking a Programming Language for a Project

[StarGateSG-1]

Hello,

I am starting to work on a program that will run in my school, this is a grade 12 programming course.

The program will read data about our school from a generated text file. It will take the data it gets and right it into an xml file and then a inpedentant webpage will be used to view it.

So, my question is?
What programing language would be most suitable for a program with these spec's.

If you need more information I will be happy to provide it at that time.

[Martin]

Both Java and .NET have very solid utilities for parsing XML, so either of those would probably be decent choices to use.

That said, there are a lot of languages that have powerful enough XML parsing capabilities (and if the file format is your choice, you might what to look into YAML instead of XML). If you have to make the web app as well, Ruby on Rails would be a decent choice to generate the actual web interface and such. I haven't checked out Ruby's XML capabilities however, so I can't vouch for it in that regard though.

Maybe be more specific about what you are doing so that we can have a better idea of your needs?

Cheers.

[StarGateSG-1]

Ok,

Basicly our board has a datasytem that creates a txt file. Here in is the problem, I need a language that can parse the text file and conventer the data that I need into an xml file, the web design part I can handle and am using xhtml with javascript for loading the xml file.

[Martin]

Well, if you know Java, C#, or Visual Basic .NET you can create it in that easily enough. If you want to learn something new, use Ruby. All of those languages will suit your needs perfectly. Also, C and C++ have libxml2 which is pretty good.

[StarGateSG-1]

I am thinking C++, because I have a general knowledge ebcause this is a school project, I have a time frame. I will be coming to this ste alot for help in the near future though.

[wtd]

C++ fot text parsing?

That's kind of like saying: "well, I'm already familiar with a hand shovel, so I'll use that to dig the foundations for a skyscraper."

Can you share more about this data file's format?

[rdrake]

Ruby would be an easier solution in all likelyness. It has built-in YAML processing as of 1.8 and I believe the built-in REXML library as well for XML processing.

I'd be interested in knowing exactly how you plan on loading the data into the web page. Using a scripting language would make it easier, but HTML I doubt would be very easy. Javascript support also varies from browser to browser, so be sure to test it with as many browsers as you can. Do you have to load the data from the XML file with HTML?

[rizzix]

cartoon_shark wrote:

I'd be interested in knowing exactly how you plan on loading the data into the web page.

XSLT all the way.

[Martin]

wtd wrote:

C++ fot text parsing?

That's kind of like saying: "well, I'm already familiar with a hand shovel, so I'll use that to dig the foundations for a skyscraper."

Just think of how good shape you'd be in afterward though

[StarGateSG-1]

It is kinda hard to describe, I am inly in the early phases of the project, I am still waiting for my slow admin to meet with me, but it will go through after all its a school course.

The text can contain any of the 100 plus bits of data that we have on any student, and you can create the data file with any number of these fields.

Each field has a certain amount of space alotted for it.

For example the data that I was using as an example was, the daily attendance, with is a huge field, but it will work well for an example:

It has each day of school includeding holidays has a section of the field represented by two characters slot (one for morning and one for afternoon), which can have a varitey of characters.

For instance
A for away, L for Late.

The program that I need to write will be able to parse through many fields and pull all the data that I need and store in several xml files. The output is simple, not a problem.

My teacher has a parser for the same types of text files that he uses to create the login and passwords, this is done in VB, now it works good for its purpose but there are bugs in there and It would take alot of work to fix them and rework it, plus it defeats the prupose. I also am not sure of how good VB is at writing xml. On top of that I know nothing about it besides the general concepts in any language.

I need a language that can parse text files and then store that data in an xml file.

I have a good knowledge of C++, a little java and C# is that much different from C++, I could leanr VB, but for any still in high school, time is ticking away, something like 52 days left of school.

So I hope you can see my problem and the requirements of a language.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to answer the question about how to load into website, I am using W3schools Tutorials on xml, I am not sure what that is, but it is a great site.

[Martin]

Of those three languages, I'd choose to work with Java. Now, C# has a great syntax I think but if they ever needed this app to run on a non Windows box they'd be SOL.

Anyway, as for Java, here's a lot of information that would be a good place to start http://java.sun.com/xml/tutorial_intro.html . I've played with it a bit, and can probably help you out if you need it (bring Java specific questions over to the Java forums though )

I know we sound sort of like a broken record, but Ruby is very easy to pick up and with Ruby on Rails, you could make this application much more than your teacher expects (and learn a ton too!)

Finally, here's is what YAML is all about http://www.yaml.org/start.html

[StarGateSG-1]

Maybe I look in to ruby, becasue the editor's are really slow or they are 'Ready', I might be interesting to learn. how much help could I get on this site, with ruby on rails?

I still like the idea of xthml with xml data, because I know what I am doing there. I am open to possiblilities, but I might rewrite the stuff over the summer for fun, but for the school project go with what I know because of a short time limit.

I need to be forceful in a way I need the best and easy to learn text file parser and the best xml file creator it thta is possible in one language.

EDIT: Well for the web design part it will not be ruby, I am going to using XSLT and XML.

[Martin]

Well, if you're using Java, RTP probably isn't a good idea. As far as 'best' goes, XML is pretty simple, so most major languages are on par as far as speed and feature sets go. As far as I've read the .NET XML parser is the fastest one out there, but the speed difference between it and libxml2 or Java's xml libraries would be measured in hundredths of a second, so it's not something to take into consideration.

As for the web design bit, although XSLT would obviously work something like Rails, PHP or JSF would be far better solutions to make it more maintainable.

Anyway, there are enough people here who are capable of helping you with Ruby and Ruby on Rails. Worst case, there are huge Ruby and RoR communities online so you'll have no problem getting your questions answered.

[StarGateSG-1]

Ok, I have decided against ruby because of the time frame, I don't know ruby at all execpt for RGSS which is for making games for RPG Maker XP.

My mian problem is not finding the fastest, but the best and quick to learn, not that I am trying to do a cheap job, just so I can get the program done asap.

[Martin]

Go with Java, it's trivial to learn how to use their XML parser.