I am currently looking at building an Open Source People Intelligence Application (Fancy Word for a phone book) for my church.
It’ll basically be a database system where you can view info on a person and automate actions like send a “facebook message to these people on this date”, “Generate a consent form for this person’s parents” kinda thing..
Let me give you some background..
I’ve been working in .NET and MSSQLfor the last year and a half (Building small data apps for business) and I think I’m starting to get pretty good at it.
My question is now I’m thinking of open sourcing this project should I plough on with ASP.NET or use something Open Source like PHP (Also open to Python although the syntax looks bizarre, or rails, grails, practically anything apart from Lotus Domino =P)
I am a fairly quick learner but am studying for a Microsoft Exam at the end of the year and have a lot of projects at work at the moment..
Most people don’t want a gritty my “my language is better than yours” debate but I Love them so go ahead!!
It needs to be secure though cause it’s real people’s data!
It depends what the purpose of the project is. Both langauges and databases are more than up to the task. If you are looking for experience in a new language choose the one you want to learn. If your goal is to produce as a robust and functional application as quickly as possible then choose the one you know best.