Heimdallr... crossing the rainbow bridge.

In my last post, I talked about running into limitations with Django and Python, where I had queries I was wanting to do, but the integration between the RawQuerySets and DRF were blocking me from being able to easily build those queries and route the results to the DataTable.. Well,  I spent a day or two this past weekend recreating the entirety of what I had written in Django and Python  using Laravel and PHP, and I have some observations.

Heimdallr, do we have a bridge to cross?

When I first wrote about Heimdallr, I saw it as a project which was going to be written in Python using Django. I have been using both PHP and Python since their initial releases, but something made that pairing stand out.  First, outside of it using colons with indention to indicate code blocks, I have liked the ecosystem with stronger typing like C/C++, whereas PHP was weaker in its typing.

Datatables: PHP vs. Python with DRF or django-ajax-datatables

I have been using jQuery DataTables for some years now, and have yet to find anything better. With its ability to produce tables with AJAX, built in sorting, filtering and more, I have used it to display datasets of over a million records. The problem comes when writing the backend code to create the DataTable and handle the AJAX requests. Recently, I started writing a Django application to track my job applications, since the spreadsheet was getting unwieldy with hundreds of rows. But unlike using PHP and Zend Framework, I have a ways to go.

PHP Upgrades (aka the joys of running a LTS operating system)

Well, earlier today, I got a reminder that I had not upgraded PHP. Indeed, unlike most of my installs, the virtual host running my WordPress sites was installed from a Live CD, and was running the dated PHP 5.4 version which CentOS/RHEL 7 comes with as a part of their base. It is a joy of running an operating system which comes with "long term support", aka LTS.