[ale] What to use

[Joseph Knapka]

Chris Fowler <cfowler at outpostsentinel.com> writes:

> Option 1: Perl + PHP.
>    All agents can be written in perl and be fully open to the
>    user if he/she wishes to mod them.  I've been able to use
>    XML::Parser to great effect and we'll use XML for all our
>    configuration. PHP will be used to display current stats and
>    logs, etc.
> 
> Option 2: J2EE.
>  
>   We can easily port much of our java code over to a J2EE environment.
>   The agent will be a java program with many threads.  We'll use Tomcat
>   do the same as PHP in option 1. Just like in option 1, agents will 
>   remain active 24x7 gathering data
> 
> 
> The idea of the project is simple.  We'll going to spend more time
> making the software robust vs. providing the customers features that
> they need.  So I'm a little confused as to what road I may want to take.
> Is Python better than Perl?

Yes :-)  And if you use Jython you can reuse any Java code you'd like,
unchanged.

> Maybe a combination of both?  We'll have
> one agent that streams data off out embedded devices.  That agent will
> pass the data to another agent that will look for patterns.  If it sees
> patterns, then a third agent will be notified.  That agent will then
> send notifications via mail, SNPP, SNMP, etc.  If configured, a 4th
> agent may execute programs on behalf of the admin. 
> 
> Making that robust will be a challenge.  We have to have 99.99% uptime
> for the software an 100% accuracy.  This is basically a form of NMS. 
> Any pointers would be appreciated.

Much as I dislike Java, it is without question a more appropriate tool
than Perl for building large-scale, maintainable systems. Furthermore,
you are more likely to find good Java progammers than good Perl
programmers (whatever that might mean). I'm not saying Perl is
unreliable, but I read the "perldoc perlreftut" page last night
in an attempt to clear up my confusion about Perl references, and
discovered that there are no less than *three* different syntaxes
for dereferencing a reference! And there are syntax variations like
that all over Perl, which means that you *will* have a tough time
reading other people's code.

Let's see, flame-retardant undies... check...

Cheers,

-- Joe Knapka
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