Need advice on choosing the technology for intranet based application

[Mark Nenadov]

In article <3d88fd1e at news.ivm.net>, "Nenad Propadovic"
<propadovic.nenad at debitel.net> wrote:


> Hello pythonistas,
> I'm about to write an application related to injury prevention in big
> industrial companies. It's supposed to be intranet-based (because the
> admins are reluctant to install it on x (where x>>1) clients). So: the
> client is a web-browser. I still don't know whether I will get a server
> on my own, or I'll have to fit into an unknown web server environment,
> both options being realistic.

Ah, yes. Isn't it fun not knowing where an application will reside? :)

> By now it seems the logic of the application will be simple. It's going
> to be a relational database with several tables, a modest number of
> users with write priviledges, some more with read priviledges only.

Sound quite simple.

> Performance is not a big issue.
> The GUI has a part I consider complex: I have to present some statistics
> in form of charts or graphs.

Maybee I should recant my last statement! :) The web can be a nightmare for
complex user interfaces.

> web/application server? I'm considering Zope (seams rather BIG when you
> download & unpack it, and it seams all possible web applications have
> been written for it) and twisted (smaller, seams lower lewel and
> somewhat easier to learn), and I'm wondering if there is something else
> out there, which is both powerfull and flexible and easy to learn and

Zope would be a good choice. Personally, though, I would stick to a
combination of Apache and Python/PHP/Perl/etc for a project like this.
Your project will be fairly small (although the GUI and chart generation
may be somewhat complex). It can't be too huge if you plan to get it done
by November in your spare time! :)  I think Python (with Apache) would be
a good choice.

One thing, you didn't mention was what languages you have used (you 
mentioned what you wrote, but not what you wrote it in). If you mentioned
what languages you have worked with in the past could, that could help 
people give you better suggestions.

> -I assume the simplest way to present a graph/chart kind of graphic is
> to create a jpg/giff/tiff on the server side, and just show it on the
> client? Thanks to everybody taking the time to read the message, and
> even more to those who answer it :-)

It really depends. You may want to generate them as images.  Or maybee
PDF's? Would PDF be a viable option for you? ReportLAB 
(www.reportlab.com) has a very good PDF generating library for Python. I've
worked with the library and it is amazing.

~Mark (http://www.freelance-developer.com)