Java ? Perl ? ASP ? CGI ?

Hi,

I'm interested in programming something like a database for a dating service that would have profiles and pictures in it.

Would Java be a good language to do that ?
I am kind of new to programming for the Internet.. and actually didn't program anything for the Internet yet. So I want to start with something that would be reasonably top of the line.

so I've been considering ASP, Java, Perl C++ ... is there a way to do without CGI as we know it ? or it's a gateway to anything on the net ?

thanks,
Denn

You can completely use java for this, in fact its recommened. CGI is very clumsy when it comes to accessing databases. Using java servlets, you can keep a continuous connection to a database (any type od DB you want as well), which makes it much quicker to access than CGI.

Dustin

Hi, thanks for the response :)

With java servlets I can keep a continuous connection to a database .. would that be good ? I mean what if some other program wants to access the database, will the database be locked ?

Do you know what kind of environment do I need to have for Java to work with webpages ? I mean can that be unix or windows ?

thanks :)

Denn

1. Java will not lock the database. It opens one connection to the DB, and from what I understand, you can have multiple connections to DBs.
2. Java is (theoretically) a platform-independent language. So if you design an servlet to run on Unix, it should still work with Solairus, Windows or Linux. Applets are a different case because they do not run on an OS, but rather they run in a browser. So if your browser can handle the code , it will work on any machine.

Hope it helps.

Dustin