PHP or Perl?

[doltmann]

Ok, im currently designing a web application that in the future will (among the many other things) be managing and calculating statistics between multiple tables each with millions of rows of data... Does PHP have the power to manage and do an operation of this size in a reasonable amount of time (at most: .5 - 1 sec.) Or would I be better off going with something like PERL on this one?

[OhLordy]

I'd say you're going to be looking a java. Although. How accurate do the stats need to be and how complicated are the statistical functions?

If the functions are no very complex it may be quicker to get MySQL to cover it.
If the stats don't need to be very accurate you could set up a script on a cron job and then build static pages or populate a lookup table.

Just out of interest what kind of app is it?

Rob

[Sxooter]

I'd say use Postgresql with PL/R, a statistical analysis package similar to the S language of SAS.

http://www.joeconway.com/plr/

If you're gonna be handling that kind of analysis, it's better to do as much in the database as possible, and you want a database built for complex queries and good performance running them.

[doltmann]

Its an educational app. Sorry, but at its current state, thats all i can legally tell you.

Thanks for the tips!

[drawmack]

something of that magnitude you'll want c++.

[Sxooter]

If you're not gonna use plR in postgresql, at least look at R, the language. You'll be reinventing the wheel if you write it in anything else.