Which language should I use?

Question

I'm about to produce a prototype for a technology startup that I've just joined, and I'm trying to decide which language to use. It's going to be a simple web tool with a MySQL database in the background and some AI stuff going on in between. I've used Ruby and PHP a reasonable amount in the past, but wonder whether I might be better off going with Python or even Perl. My main programming experience is with C / C++ / Java, but I feel like I want to go for something that will make my life as easy as possible since I'm just developing a prototype.

I guess what I'm looking for is:

• speed of development
• existing AI libraries (e.g. SVMs, neural networks, Bayesian classifiers)
• ease of interacting with a web interface

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Answer 1

The only thing I can really comment on is this: PHP is bascially a DSL for the web, whereas the other three (Perl, Ruby, Python) are more general-purpose languages that have no specific domain, although all are definitely web-capable.

In terms of your second bullet point, I think PHP will probably be the worst choice out of your list.

Answer 2

Try Python using Mod_Python. As a language, it's got a lot of great machine learning and natural language processing modules, and it's really easy to read, learn, and use.

Answer 3

If you're used to the unix stack/environment, I would go for Python - nice and easy.

EDIT: You can implement the number-crunching part in C or C++ and make it a module to use in your python code. This way, you get fast number-crunching code, and easy-to-program glue.

Answer 4

Regarding Python:

If you need performance for compute-intensive stuff, look at Numeric Python http://numpy.scipy.org/ and Pyrex http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/ . Numeric Python is a Python extension that provides a lot of old-school numeric facilities as fast C code -- vector math (an essential tool for ANN work), etc. Pyrex is a tool that essentially allows you to compile Python code down to a native executable.

With Pyrex you need to be careful about using reflection, because it can't fully compile code that uses certain reflective constructs (notably locals() and globals()). I mention this restriction only because both AI and exploratory coding (implied by your "prototype" remark) often take advantage of reflection more than other kinds of application areas do.

Answer 5

PHP or even SSI would be my choice for prototyping in this case. My reasoning: I don't have to worry about a templating system, as they both ARE templating systems. No sense wasting time deciding on a templating system for a mere prototype. SSI in particular is a compelling choice, you still have your choice of languages for the CGI processing, and as for returning non-atomic data, you can emit JSON, and then allow the UI to loop over the returned data structure using Javascript.

Answer 6

If it were me, I would write the whole thing in python, then profile it and write the bottlenecks in pyrex. When you're developing complex AI-type algoritms, it's (1) useful to develop in a high-level language so you can quickly try lots of different approaches and (2) useful to have a reference implementation in a high-level language to test the C/C++ implementation against. I use python/pyrex in this way all the time and it works well for me.