Suggestion Wanted: Need to develop a lookup search engine

not sure about the programming language to use....

[Imaster]

I have to develop a high-end application (which would provide a lookup service like superpages.com) for my client. I am considering using either php/mysql or C/mysql combination.

The service would be for a very high traffic site which would perhaps run on a combination of around 4-5 servers under a load balanced setup. (i.e. my client is estimating that kind of traffic and we need to develop the application based on his requirements and estimation).

Since the traffic would be high and mysql database activity would be continous, would it make sense to make the application in php or c/c++ for greater speed and lesser server loads.

I believe that many high end search engines run on programs developed in "C".

An inputs would be appreciated. TIA.

[txbakers]

I would think C/C++ on a dot net environment would be better than PhP.

the .NET environment runs compiled programs while the scripting languages are interpreted and generally slower.

Although for your situation, it would seem that the database configuration would be more important than the language of the code. If you have a good budget, and it sounds like you do, you might want to consider using MS Sql Server or one of the bigger boys like Oracle. Don't get me wrong, mySQL is great, but you can do more with SQl Server, etc.

[mcavic]

Having used MySQL, MS SQL, and Oracle, I think that MySQL is the fastest and easiest to maintain; I'd stick with it. Oracle and MS SQL may have more features, but it doesn't sound like you'll need them.

As for C vs PHP, C may be faster if it's written correctly. But PHP is quite fast, and much easier to program in, especially for database access.

[bakedjake]

If you can write good C code, do it there. It'll be much faster than PHP.

I'll second txbaker's opinion about the database - you'll need the data warehousing and stored procedure capabilities of one of the big boys if the data access is as large as you predict.

[Imaster]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for all the responses. I have decided to use C language to develop the application, but I am not certain whether I would be able to move over to ms sql or oracle. We prefer mysql to the other databases. So I would develop the application with C/Mysql and test it. If it works slow, then perhaps I will move over to some other database.

Thanks again.

[mcavic]

Sounds like a good idea to test and see what happens. Just be sure to code the database routines in a modular way, and it should be easy to switch to any database.

[Easy_Coder]

You should be able to design your com objects to facilitate pointing to different data sources in addition to getting called from different languages.