Python for data driven website?

[Peter Hansen]

Micah Mayo wrote:
> 
> >
> > You don't need to say any more than that to elicit the correct answer
> > at this point, which is "what are your requirements?".
> >
> > You need to get a handle on what you actually need to accomplish,
[...]
> >
> Definatly reliabilty/scalability.  [...]

Don't limit yourself to those, or the others I suggested.  You 
need to go back to the "old guy" (I bet he's, what, 26? :-) and
get the group to define all the other dimensions along which your
potential solutions must be measured.

Security?  I can't believe I didn't mention security in the previous 
message.  You're talking about customers who will probably be
sending private information over the web, right?  Need to know
about authentication and encryption issues, presumably... some
solution really fall down in this area.

Keep listing those "ilities" until you run out.  If you miss
a key one, you may end up with a square peg and spend the next
year hammering it into a little round hole.

By the way, "We have a preliminary version ... but it is far 
from done. We want to do this right the first time - we expect 
to spend a year working on it" makes me think that you guys ought
to spend a brief time investigating Extreme Programming and 
considering whether you might benefit from a more iterative
approach with more frequent releases to get feedback on the
direction you are taking, as well as to help focus you on the most
important tasks so you don't get distracted on low business value
items for too much of the project.  

No project like this should be worked on for three man-years 
before its first release, at least not in this day and age!

-Peter