> I think that the single critical question to ask about any > development in a digital library environment is it's ability > to deal with Unicode and it's related standards such as UTF-8. > Last time I looked at it, PHP had problems is that area. > These problems will bedevil anything you write in PHP, no > matter how elegant you code.
Just to follow on this comment and the related thread on development languages and PHP, UTF-8 handling is *exactly* one of the reasons you should consider platforms in addition to "pure" or "base" languages. The better frameworks out there address the shortcomings of their languages, including PHP and its poor Unicode support. And while I've broken my silence, I'd just like to add to Marijane's original question: something you'll want to consider is the deployability and maintainability of your chosen platform -- as both a long-time programmer and systems admin, even a wonderfully elegant language can be a nightmare to maintain if it's not well-supported at the OS level -- I'm sure this is one of the reasons for the success of LAMP. MJ
