Wednesday, February 15, 2006

New project planning

I'm about to start developing heavy client-based web application. It is meant to be some form of CMS for web-comic relying on client-side JavaScript and PHP as data connector.

I didn't decide yet which technologies/protocols/software I'm going to use, but I had following structure in mind at first:

  • User interface: JavaScript using XMLHttpRequest to obtain data from server;
  • Data transfer protocol: pure XML;
  • Data provider: PHP would be used to read data and prepare results in XML for XHRO;
  • Data store: XML files sound like cheap solution. I think it should be easier to prepare XML output if I only select some elements and redirect them to XHRO.

As more time passes I find more flaws in this design. Some points I've read at "Why does XML suck" just cannot be denied.

Now I think I'd use JSON to transfer data between data connector and JavaScript. I still cannot decide upon data store.

MySQL does seem like logical solution. I have used it many times before, version 5 seems like serious RDBMS with features like stored procedures and data dictionary. Problem is that hosting solutions I'm interested in do not support newer versions (MySQL 4.0.x is most recent I saw) and generally, MySQL database has to be seperately paid for.

Hence, I started to think about SQLite. I've never used it before and don't have any idea about how fast/flexible it is, so I will do some testing.

I tried using embedded Firebird on previous project and liked it. Especially because it has support for stored procedures and many 'advanced RDBMS features' ('advanced RDBMS features' is everything not present in MySQL < 4.1 :D). Unfortunately it would require rebuild of PHP or additional dlls. I doubt I'd get that with shared hosting :(

Maybe I should look for more hosting solutions :)

3 comments:

Popa Adrian Marius said...

yes you can search for better hosting
solution ;)
We can offer firebird hosting if you need it

http://reea.net/serv_hosting.htm

Popa Adrian Marius said...

Oh and there many more firebird hosting providers on the ibphoenix.com page

sidonath said...

Wow! Those Reea are really nice hosting solutions :)

Thanks, I'll definetely take it into concideration