I don’t want to be geeky, but I do want to go over some technology decisions that we are facing regarding uCareer’s architecture.
For those of you who are not familiar with the term LAMP it stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (sometimes Perl or Python). Personally, since I’ve used C before, PHP seems a natural choice for me, as it’s so easy to learn with a C background. Among the 4S (Speed, Stability, Security and Simplicity), speed and stability are really critical to us (this is not to say that security and simplicity are not). The main reason that I lean towards LAMP is not that all the components are open source and free, but rather they work together seamlessly. The speed of execution is real and does not demand a lot of system resources. Every component integrates well with each other. PHP has a small footprint under Linux and when run as an Apache module, PHP is a thin wrapper around many operating system calls and can be very fast. Our experience is that ASP with MySQL work together well, but PHP and MySQL work faster and as a bonus for me, PHP is so easy to learn with a C background. There is a huge community out there and you can get almost any support and help you need (at least in my case). This is why LAMP is considered an important package in the Internet world.
My biggest concern over any MS product is the support of different versions. This is something that you do not have to worry about with any open source framework. Examples include Amazon and their choice to go with Perl/Mason so that they can extend and fix themselves, Google’s decision to go with Linux and Apache both of which they can modify as they see fit and Oracle’s decision to customize Apache to their own needs. I had a very interesting discussion with Scott Winterton, one of the .NET experts and he had some very good points: 1).Net has an award winning IDE. 2) It is generally safer to go with established languages. 3) When it comes to support, stability and concern for customers’ existing applications, you basically get what you pay for. 4) LAMP in general requires a relatively bigger group of talented engineers, which is why a start up should go with .NET.
Now I am debating again. I will have a meeting with Scott next Monday and we will discuss more on this topic; I will post and update later.
Have you heard this before: “choosing software/application is kind of like choosing a lifestyle, we live different lifestyles depending on what we do. There isn’t one tech that will take over the world.”
