What should I write my web app in? It needs to be able to query an SQL database and an LDAP database

Question

I'm creating a web page that accesses data from an SQL database and and LDAP database . Those are my only requirements; I'm free to start fresh. What should I write it in? I'm thinking PHP, Ruby, or maybe Google Web Toolkit.

• I'm pretty sure we already have PHP installed, but I have permission to install Ruby or something else if I choose to
• I'm familiar with PHP, but I've never used Ruby, Python or other "cool" server-side scripting languages.
• I'm not under a very tight time constraint

I'm wondering which language if any would be relatively easy to set up on our server, learn and build this simple tool with.

Answer 1

You've got two quite specific requirements there. But, I suspect that when you stop & think, you may have further requirements due to

• your hosting environment (operating system, packages provided)
• expected visitor volume
• UI expectations (plain/glossy)
• quantity of development (or maintenance) effort available
• your existing skills
• funds available

I suspect that at the moment your requirements are too brief to allow a clear 'winner' to emerge: we will just have a StackOverflow flame-war.

Have a think about the above questions and re-pose a question with some substance that would allow an informed debate.

Answer 2

Easiest to get going will definitely be php - it is also probably the most widespread language, so plenty of support.

Answer 3

I've been having a lot of fun recently useing Node.js . (JavaScript) It is excellent at interecting with REST apis, and there are modules available to interact with several databases and LDAP. A list of modules is available here.