Which one, perhaps SQL? Please, give me your advice...

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:53 am

On 2003-11-16 20:19, Nestor wrote:
Have you ever used Coldfusion? Why do people say it is so easy to learn?

I never used it to make a web site from scratch, i know it cuz i had to migrate from ColdFusion TO Java. It's 'similar' in essence, where it use specialized 'tags' to do server side tasks before rendering the page to browsers.

The real pain in using Coldfusion is that you NEED to buy stuff, and it's not cheap at all. Where in Java world the dev kit is free, you're not lock down to one software provider.

LOTS of free libs are available (look at jakarta.apache.org projects). And development is portable. I develop on PC with XP, but always deploy on huge Unix server. ColdFusion is also available for 'some' unix machine, but not as wide spread.

And you'll have to wait for macromedia to fix bugs, where in Java, there is so many sources of nicely done software available for free, that you don't care as much.

As you guessed so far, i use alot of free stuff in my work, the reason is simple, since i'm not exactly cheap labor, the more money my customers save, the more he can give me

Hey, gotta have money to pay for those nice sfp plugins all the time!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 8:31 am

On 2003-11-17 01:37, marcuspocus wrote:
Astroman, this F# thingy could be nice. LiSP, Scheme, F#?... great!

well, Marcuspocus, a peek at the specs M$ announces versus the LPA.co.uk product range reveals that almost all of that stuff is already available.

We know how M$ acts if it's serious about it's own inability.
They couldn't solve the NT4 server issues and simply bought Connectix for their PC emulation technology, now appearing as:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/virtualpc/

That programming stuff is way more sophisticated and LPA is the market leader for commercial Prolog systems with > 15 years experience.
It's frightening me that a company like M$ gets access to one core technology after the other and controls it's further appliance.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2003-11-17 08:46 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 10:17 am

Thanks for your answers Z friends!

It is perhaps interesting for you John, and all this started for me when you posted an ATI video in the Off Topic forum, about virtualmusic or something like that. The workings of it impressed me so much, that I decided to start myself into multimedia. I have gone a little path so far, and I did not mistake, it is a fantastic world, very much in concomitance with music and a way to start a better living for my wife and myself.

I’m quite surprised to find out there are many musicians into programming… It’s an interesting fact. The virtues you mention there John, are for sure needed in music creation. This gives me some encouragement thinking that I may also program one day as other musicians do, like you for instance (just your 5% would be nice).

Nevertheless, it is scary the amount of programming languages that there exist as pointed by you. Here you have a list of the “28” different languages you have referred to, plus Colfusion, the one I mentioned myself:

SQL, PL/SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, MSDI, Paradox, Access, Oracle, Python, PHP, Eclipse IDE, Jakarta Tomcat, JAVA, HSQLDB, Object DB, Interbase, sql92, JSP, ASP, Zope, C*, F*, LISP, Prolog LPA, XML, Colfusion.

I can’t say anything else but: “overwhelming!” Far too many choices before starting, I feel like in the year 1998, when I was trying to figure out which would be the best soundcard to get.

I understand that every experience is different, every need and every way of understanding things too, so there are solutions and solutions, programs and programs for all needs and tastes. So far, I think Prolog LPA suggested by Astroman would perhaps be my best choice. There is a free version of the Prolog language to start as well, even if the full version costs a wild $3.500...

Also, perhaps Macromedia Colfusion it’s expensive ($1000) but if you can work like if you were in a single program with Deramweaver and the rest of the MX Studio, there it would be something to consider in the long term, when my programming starts paying me back.

Nevertheless, it seems that most of these languages would do what the other do. This is what I understood from you. What one program does, the other does better or worse, but they all do more and less the same thing, they seem just different ways to achieve something. I understand them like Cackwalk, Logic and Cubase if you like, not as an EQ and Reverb differences. I think I is essential form me to understand the basics on what you are explaining here. I would like to rather understand that just accept because it is good for you. Could you please point me out to a few links, the most basic and clear you may know, to start understanding by myself the workings of programming, web applications and databases? I would then be able to ask you questions with a little more understanding and also be ready to comprehend what you are telling me, which sometimes looks like if you were speaking Japanese to me…

Something is clear: I have understood in depth that programming, despite all its troubles, complications and abrupt learning curve you have to go through before succeeding, gives you all the tools to be creatively free. I believe that to be able to “think and do”, it’s a dream that worth the effort.

Please, make those links fly to me…

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 12:02 pm

Nestor, don't be confused by names, there are in fact millions of products out today for one or the other programming job

Most important fact is that you can start with whatever you like WITHOUT first spending a fortune.
Use mySQL instead of Oracle or a free Prolog instead of the LPA version.

The free stuff isn't crippled or second class - it just (usually) doesn't contain certain aspects important in productive environements where downtime costs or wages are highly important.

There are only 3 different language groups:

SQL as a control language for database processes and nothing else but that. You cannot write a user intergace in SQL

JAVA represents the way of programming where the programmer defines control and dataflow of the application.

In PROLOG the 'program' itself deduces control from stepping through a list of conditions. That's why such languages are called 'declarative'.

Both ways of programming have advantages and disadvantages, often dictated by practical conditions of workflow in a company network.

You should really make up your mind between JAVA and PROLOG - those 2 are truely representative, and the tool must finally fit YOUR needs.

JAVA is a very obvious thing if it comes to web programming - PROLOG isn't even known much, so I suggested it because otherwise it would simply get overlooked.
It is definetely worth considering because you only have to understand a rather simple concept to make use of it as a productive tool, while other systems require a lot more background knowledge.
The M$ story is just a 'funny' coincidence...

cheers, Tom

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:39 pm

Ufff, that's clear now... The whole 28 thing came to be just 3ways...

fortunately for me...

I think the Prolog one will be my choice right away. Beaing easier to use than the others, free and capable enough, well... what else can I ask for... I just want to be able to build forums, feedback formularies, product databases and things like that, that I think are most comun in web development.

Then I have chousen already one, the Prolog.

Now, John advices me to use Python, would it be a substitute or a complement to the Prolog? Cheers.

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 2:11 pm

I don't know much about Python, but the Eclipse IDE i proposed earlier also support Prolog programming, for free, including compiler :

http://www.amzi.com/download/

There is also an eclipse plugin for Python programming

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:08 pm

one important point Nestor, that hasn't been mentioned yet:

when I was writing about learning to program I really meant being able to analyze a situation (or problem) and formulate a solution by your own means. From the ground up.

I did not think of browsing the internet or some textbooks for something most closely related to the current task and modify the source code accordingly.
This is of course perfectly OK and I've done it myself as almost every other programmer.

But as a beginner you don't learn to 'think analytical' and your skills to find a solution (or work it out) will never really develope.
It is tempting in the beginning because it promises quick success - and in most cases it even will (on simple startup projects).

But then you get into a real deal with a nice customer and suddenly something goes awefully wrong... your career is finished before it even began.

I would delay the program control for the web stuff (not the simple things of course) until you feel familiar and at least a little self confident with programming.
Like an instrument it takes a time (3-6 month I guess)
Pick out simple, basic examples which make it easy to understand the complete process.

From my own experiences I can only add that it was much easier than today - my first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 connected to the TV

There were no GUIs or large libraries of code. One could grow with technology around growing as well.

cheers, Tom

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 11:52 pm

Astroman, I trully apreciate your advice here! Thanks for your time and kindness to answer me. I've got it...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:42 am

tnx Nestor, nice to read you get this going, but honestly, your questions have helped me as well to recall some facts I'll probably need myself soon - and I also could take advantage of some links provided in this thread

But since your original question was related to SQL, here's a small addition to SQL and RELATIONAL in context with database use.

Originally referring to a math item in calculous, it was quickly 'taken over' as an attribute by almost any mid class company to 'enhance' their product.

'True' relational databases (Oracle, DB2 etc) express arbitrary 'connections' in the data by applying a fairly complex set of math rules (invisible for the user).
A sophisticated process which requires top quality programming - so 'relational' originally also stood as a synonym for extraordinary quality.

The 'pretenders' simply didn't refer to the math context of 'relation', but to the common use of the word to express that 'something is related to...'

In fact those apps (Access, FileMaker, Foxbase etc.) violate (in technical sense) almost all requirements for relational databases.

Still the customer reads the same word on the package and guess what happens...

This does by no way mean those databases are useless, and in fact many applications don't even require a fraction of the power the big systems offer.

On todays average PCs you can keep huge amounts of data in memory, which is not always an advantage, though.
Obviously a power failure will wipeoff or corrupt large portions, as may do bad cache handling (!).
And a smart disk based search can still be faster than a stupid one in memory.

The same applies to the implementation of the control language SQL.
Oracle has a very sophisticated one - really, I've done conversion miracles with it - but 10 years later I don't understand my own scripts anymore

Others are more or less usable for basic tasks, and what applies to the abuse of 'relational' applies to SQL as well.
Unfortunately I cannot comment on mySQL from personal experience, but I guess it's one of the better systems.
To give you an impression of Oracle's power:
my first server ran on a 16 MHZ Motorola CPU in 8 MB of Ram and served a dozen office workers with a database of 50k entries. You MUST have very good program code if you want to succeed under that conditions

cheers, Tom

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 12:29 pm

On 2003-11-16 17:35, marcuspocus wrote:
BTW, the 'relationships' view is really to build all the db's constraints. So yes, it's an ER diagram, in it's own right.

That's not true. ER-diagram is "entity map". A picture that has entities and relationships between them.
The tool in access is "picture of relations (tables)".

First you ahve ER-diagram and then you transform it into table specifications.

Maybe just some academic nonsense.

For an ALL FREE development environment, i would really use:
Eclipse IDE
Jakarta Tomcat
Why? Cuz It JAVA man!
I'm a Java guy, and i can say without any doubt, Java is better than any other language
for Web development... Read again ->web development<-

As much as I (we) hate Micro$oft, there's no question which technology I'd choose if I were to choose: ASP.NET. It's superior to anything!
Though, to get most of it, you need to used Visual Studio which is everything but FREE. But there are free dev tools, too.

some links, [url] http://www.asp.net [url]
[url] http://www.microsoft.com/net/ [url]

[ This Message was edited by: spoimala on 2003-11-18 12:29 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 3:32 pm

I understand it Astro, yes, it is something similar to what happend with "Power Wattage". It is ridiculous to expect 350Watts of power in a power house HI-FI system for instance. Companies took advantage of some other mesures to say they are Power Watts, but they are different. With just 3 real Watts you have enough and it is pretty loud for a room.

Well, I'm glad you are yourself finding help through this trheat you are helping

It is said that those who help, are helped, and it is true.

I whish I had the time to get into it inmediately, but I can't right now. I will start studing it in about a month more and less, depending of some projets I'm finishing. What I can say is that most surely, thanks to your advice, I will go Prolog and, if Python is a complement to it, I would also go Python. Are they a substitution of each other or complementary progrmas?

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 4:23 pm

On 2003-11-18 12:29, spoimala wrote:

As much as I (we) hate Micro$oft, there's no question which technology I'd choose if I were to choose: ASP.NET. It's superior to anything!

Ah ah! Let me laught!

First, i don't hate microsft. Xp is great for desktop use.

As for dot net?

Ok, i'll give you ONE (of many) constraint i have to live with everyday for the last 18years (yeah, been living out of my programs since 1985) that kill's it:

Corporate business in this world is done on UNIX servers...I deploy my apps on Unix servers

If you have other related questions, well, don't ask me

I warned you i'm not the guy to argue on this. It's like saying to CW Franck that Powercore is better!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 4:48 pm

Prolog and Python are completely different approaches to a programming task.
Python doesn't need much explanation, just write down commands to let the program perform your tricks - it works exactly as you 'expect' programming.

Prolog's way of processing is very difficult to describe. The name stands for 'PROgramming in LOGic' and it's basically nothing but a database consisting of one to many tables.
The program flow is (automatically) deduced from certain conditions while the 'engine' works through the list of statements.
If formulated well, the list of statements almost reads as the description of the problem, that's why it's called 'declarative programming'.

It IS VERY STRANGE in the beginning, but if you make yourself familiar with the basic principle (which is simple indeed - just logic) you have an extremely powerful tool.

If you've never programmed you can learn this in 3-6 month and within another 6 month you may design your own commercial stuff.

With all respect to any object oriented framework - you don't have a chance at all to succeed on the same level in the same time, be it Java, Python or that M$ crap.

As a beginner you may become familiar with pre-fabricated apps and modify them moderately (as I've written before), but even that takes hundreds of pages to read.

But what's possibly more important is that Prolog is a 'metalanguage' which means it can 'emulate' any programming language, even itself

and (if desired) modify processing code during runtime depending on certain conditions.
Together with the built-in database engine it might be a little more ideal for web programming, than Java

But all this must be seen under the condition that it's about YOUR OWN business.
Projects you setup for your own website or for clients which hire you to design something for them.
In these cases such a tool enables you to do the work of at least 3 people.

If you have to work together with other companies, you're not that free - and then it's better to stick with Marcuspocus' advice and use Java and a widespread toolkit.

cheers, Tom

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 5:58 pm

No, I'm not planning to work with any company, but by myself, doing some rather small jobs. The more you explain me, and the more I read about it, the more I see "Prolog" is the best choice. I think it will be faster and the only person that has to follow what I do and know, will be my wife. BTW, she's much better than me on math and the likes... She has an incredible memory and so studying it toguether will be much easier as well.

I'm going to start, of course, with the free version you pointed me out first, then, if jobs arrises on programing, and they will alwas arrise cos there are no many of them in Chile, I will buy the program taking advantage of the great service it seems they offer in LPA. You need to be proffesional to pay $3.500, it's a lot of money there...

I can't wait to start... I have to be quite mad for willing it, is like asking to complicate your life...

But hell, life is already complicated, I want to be an average programmer, that's it!

Thanks again Astro...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 7:36 pm

it's almost risk-free for you, Nestor - I'll play the guinea-pig

tomorrow morning is a first strategic talk of part #1 of my ongoing project with the LPA developement system.
I usually did all my stuff on the Mac, but this time I'm forced to use Windows...

Nevertheless I want to have the basic functionality of the system up and running within this year.
It replaces a 'classical' Oracle database accessed via a dedicated client application by a web server based solution.
Probably rather similiar what you're planning to do.
I'll keep you informed about the performance of the tool - but I'm rather confident ...must be

cheers, Tom

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:34 am

On 2003-11-18 16:23, marcuspocus wrote:
Ah ah! Let me laught!

Feel free. Laughing makes good to mental health.

Corporate business in this world is done on UNIX servers...I deploy my apps on Unix servers

Define "this world". I've been doing 5 years business on Microsoft platforms.
Also, ASP.NET is available for UNIX
http://www.go-mono.org/

If you have other related questions, well, don't ask me

I also said, "if I were to ask"

[ This Message was edited by: spoimala on 2003-11-19 09:36 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 2:12 pm

On 2003-11-18 19:36, astroman wrote:
it's almost risk-free for you, Nestor - I'll play the guinea-pig
tomorrow morning is a first strategic talk of part #1 of my ongoing project with the LPA developement system.
I usually did all my stuff on the Mac, but this time I'm forced to use Windows...

Nevertheless I want to have the basic functionality of the system up and running within this year.
It replaces a 'classical' Oracle database accessed via a dedicated client application by a web server based solution.
Probably rather similiar what you're planning to do.
I'll keep you informed about the performance of the tool - but I'm rather confident ...must be

cheers, Tom

I will for sure be your first reader...

But hey, don't call me Guinea-Pig, I'm an Argeninean-Pig instead... he he

Wow, you must be happy to have a change after so many years of doing the same with the same product. I think it is good to change some times to something else, just to let your brain juices move along...

so you keep it healthy and enterteined.

Please Astro, when you report it, do it in a separate thread. Cheers...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 5:05 pm

yeah, grey matter is being entertained

they pretty much put me under pressure today.
I've to cludge 'something' together over the weekend to yield 'something impressive' to be shown on a meeting with a co-working company on tuesday next week - not a single line of code yet

I begin to like it again...

If there's something useful turning out I'll indeed share it in a separate thread.
Since I'm also planning to try the system on some musical stuff, this will probably be of more interest here.
I'm pretty confident for the database and workflow part (that's my job), I don't have any experience manipulating soundfiles yet...

cheers, Tom