html querying/parsing.

[grang]

Hi all,

I am trying to do something similar to a simple meta search engine (but without using the APIs, and instead querying and parsing/formatting the html.)

Since I am a newbie to the web development, I am in need of some help/guidance in deciding the below.

1. Should the html quering/parsing/reformatting be done on the client side or the server side.

(I want to do this on the client side, that way, the server need not do all the querying and the parsing.. is there a way to do this in any of the current technology?)

2. Which language/platform should I use. Since I am new to web developement I am not sure which one to choose
(PHP/Perl/JavaScript/ASP.NET C#/VBscripts etc)). (and easy to learn)

I want this to be extensible, and the results should display asynchronously so the user need not wait for results for all the sites.

3. If I had to do this on the client side, would I be better of writing a client side web application instead of a web site?

It would really of great help if you can provide me some guidance.

thanks for your time.
guru

[httpwebwitch]

1. Do it server-side. if you do all this client-side you're at the mercy of the browser and the limited capabilities of javascript. Server programming is far more robust, more reliable, and can easily make connections to things like databases.

2. try PHP, you'll like it.

>> the results should display asynchronously
then you will enjoy the flush() command in PHP

the major advantage of PHP is the community of shared open-source scripts available