A quick update: the two main options I'm weighing right now are Zend Framework and Rails, since both offer some level of integrated ajax support. A lot of people would say Rails is the obvious choice, and from a design perspective I agree. The catch is that pushing a Rails solution potentially means me involving myself in a lot more sysadmin work than I want to.
I know there are tutorials for getting Rails up and running using MacPorts and so on, but it's still potentially days of work mucking around with configuration files and googling for solutions to things. I'd rather spend that time working on the app itself. There's also a minor consideration of being able to reuse some PHP code (which is not setup to act a service).
The one potential saving grace here is Passenger, which promises a PHP-like level of deployment simplicity. If that is the case, then it may make Rails a practical solution.
by Scott Stevenson — Aug 03
I know there are tutorials for getting Rails up and running using MacPorts and so on, but it's still potentially days of work mucking around with configuration files and googling for solutions to things. I'd rather spend that time working on the app itself. There's also a minor consideration of being able to reuse some PHP code (which is not setup to act a service).
The one potential saving grace here is Passenger, which promises a PHP-like level of deployment simplicity. If that is the case, then it may make Rails a practical solution.