Dynamic reporting options
This is quite a general question.
I'm not very experienced in web development generally, and certainly not in the realms of dynamic content and scripting etc., but I want to learn so I'm not after a solution per se.
What I'm interested in is a bit of directional guidance as to which technologies I need to go with. Basically I'm bewildered by the range of different approaches.
Some background: I want to develop a web page that is essentially a database query fed with criteria from a form. It should report in the form of a table of values for a couple of variables and a chart.
The data originates in SPSS (a statistical programme) but could easily be converted into something else (I've been using XML), so this shouldn't be an issue.
What would more experienced heads recommend as the best technology. It should be platform and application neutral if possible.
Points all round for useful answers.
I'm not very experienced in web development generally, and certainly not in the realms of dynamic content and scripting etc., but I want to learn so I'm not after a solution per se.
What I'm interested in is a bit of directional guidance as to which technologies I need to go with. Basically I'm bewildered by the range of different approaches.
Some background: I want to develop a web page that is essentially a database query fed with criteria from a form. It should report in the form of a table of values for a couple of variables and a chart.
The data originates in SPSS (a statistical programme) but could easily be converted into something else (I've been using XML), so this shouldn't be an issue.
What would more experienced heads recommend as the best technology. It should be platform and application neutral if possible.
Points all round for useful answers.
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http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/index.html for ---- learning about MYSQL
http://www.php.net ----- learning about php
PHP also has a manual you can download which has all sorts of comments about using there code and has to be one of the most flexible languages I've ever come across.
Also you may want to look at:
www.sitepoint.com
they have 2 books right now being sold that cover CSS and one one PHP/MYSQL for about $70 when you get both together. (They also have a book preview available for download so you can see if the book is useful or not. What I read of them - well let's just say the Mail is SLOW!)
Hope These help -
Red010Knight
http://www.php.net ----- learning about php
PHP also has a manual you can download which has all sorts of comments about using there code and has to be one of the most flexible languages I've ever come across.
Also you may want to look at:
www.sitepoint.com
they have 2 books right now being sold that cover CSS and one one PHP/MYSQL for about $70 when you get both together. (They also have a book preview available for download so you can see if the book is useful or not. What I read of them - well let's just say the Mail is SLOW!)
Hope These help -
Red010Knight
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ASKER
Thanks makc, I'll add that to my list!
I'll finalise this in a day or two when I've made my decision.
Hope the suspense doesn't get too much for you all! :-)
I'll finalise this in a day or two when I've made my decision.
Hope the suspense doesn't get too much for you all! :-)
ASKER
Right, update time.
I duly downloaded MySQL and PHP, and I'm definitely going to go with that option. Just need to read a book.
makc: Thanks for the xml at apache link, I think I might well convert to a XQUERY solution as soon as that becomes viable, so watch this space.
doryllis: thanks for the Python tip - that's something I've been meaning to bone up on as well! So many books to read :(. I'll check out Zope as well.
red010knight: I've been doing a bit of digging about SPSS. Seems there is a data driver so that you can set it up as an ODBC data source, which might be handy! If you drop me an email with your address (check my profile) I'll let you know what I find out.
I duly downloaded MySQL and PHP, and I'm definitely going to go with that option. Just need to read a book.
makc: Thanks for the xml at apache link, I think I might well convert to a XQUERY solution as soon as that becomes viable, so watch this space.
doryllis: thanks for the Python tip - that's something I've been meaning to bone up on as well! So many books to read :(. I'll check out Zope as well.
red010knight: I've been doing a bit of digging about SPSS. Seems there is a data driver so that you can set it up as an ODBC data source, which might be handy! If you drop me an email with your address (check my profile) I'll let you know what I find out.
ASKER
What I had done to begin with was transfer the data to an XML file, and I was running the query by using ASP to build an XSLT stylesheet based on the values passed to it from a form and return the transformed data.
This seems like a really chunky and ugly way of doing it. I think maybe in the future XQUERY might help, but I need to do something now!
From what you've both said PHP and MySQL sounds like the way to go. Time to get my learning cap on I think.
I'll finalise this in a couple of days and let you know what option I'm going with.
red010knight:
SPSS can save data as a bunch of things, but not CSV. Most usefully it can save files as Excel, tab-delimited or fixed width ascii and dbase formats.
SPSS do offer a web component, but I think they charge the earth for it and I don't need that kind of power, it's only simple queries I need.