Which web application framework to use with existing database? [closed]

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My company wants to start mobile web application development, as an addition to our own ERP software. We do not have any expert knowledge about this, that is why I have to research which tools/frameworks/languages we are going to use.

We already have an existing database, and want to be able to quickly build an extra simple web app, to deploy some handy mobile functionality for our customers. For example, we want to start with making the agenda in our software available for mobile/tablet.

We want to set it up like the following:

• we host the web application internally
• the web application remotely accesses to the customer's database (Advantage Database Server, can be query'd remotely through JSON), which can also be multiple customer's databases

We develop our desktop software in Delphi, and therefore are not experienced web developers. A framework should meet the following needs:

• IDE available, maybe some other handy tools
• Preferably small learning curve
• Good documentation/support
• suited for mobile web development
• suited for simple and small开发者_StackOverflow web apps, there won't be any need for developing web apps with lots of functionality (most likely aimed at being able to perform two or three tasks)

We will be making a choice for a direction for the coming years, so any possible guarantee about the framework being continued for a period of time is also nice.

So far I've learned that we most likely won't need an ORM, since we definitely won't change our database structure to suit the web app.

So my question is: which frameworks should I take a closer look at, and which can already be ruled out?

BTW: I'm not looking for an answer for a designer's framework such as Sencha Touch, JQueryMobile etc.

Thanks in advance!

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We develop our desktop software in Delphi, and therefore are not experienced web developers.

In that case, I think you are solving the wrong problem:

Hire a team lead who is (even if it is just as a contract role for the first project or two). You need to have someone on board who is aware of all the technologies involved (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, HTTP, SSL) and how to use them appropriately and securely.

Let them determine what tools the team uses — they will have to support the team as it learns to use them.

(If I was going to name a framework, it would be Dancer as that meets most of your requirements)

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I have experience with many PHP frameworks (Zend, CakePHP, Kohana, CodeIgniter, Akelos and 2 in-house solutions). Also having some experience with Python's Django framework and lot's of experience with PHP Yii framework, I can recommend Yii both hands up. Even though every robust framework has quite some learning curve, I can say that Yii was the easiest to learn and I was left with most pleasure developing with it.

• It is PHP 5 framework, event driven, with support for callback closures and other PHP 5.3 features.
• Exceptionally well documented
• Extremely fast, due to the fact its component based - you can use only few basic components that you need, also it doesn't have hundreds of abstractions like in Zend so you won't get lost in object references
• Very friendly community - I have never been left without an answer if I explain my question well
• You can use Active Record ORM models but this is absolutely your own choice. You can go with its DAO (basically PDO wrapper) and write plain SQL. I would rarely do that. Using AR in most cases can save you lots of work and at least in Yii it wouldn't mind any kind of table schema. So I don't see a valid reason to not use AR except for complex queries.
• It is themeable, both simple views and widgets/modules - I've been amazed how easy it is to make a mobile version of a website just by creating a new theme.
• It has great support of i18n - its easy to make a multilingual web applications if at some point you need it
• Both Eclipse PDT and Netbeans 7 for PHP are great web development tools that have some additional support for Yii (though with them it was easy to develop such web apps even before their Yii support).
• It's comes with jQuery for it's core widgets for common tasks, yet you are free to use any JS framework you prefer (you probably would never use most of those core widgets for mobile too much anyway).

There is even more to say, but go ahead and check its website: http://www.yiiframework.com/

No matter what framework you choose, most of the work for a successful mobile web app is left for you.

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Check out web2py, as it is probably one of the easiest to set up, learn, and use. You can use it with any IDE or editor, but it also includes its own web-based IDE and administrative interface for application management and basic editing (see demo). It has great documentation, and there's a very active and response mailing list if you need any help.

Rather than an ORM, it includes a database abstraction layer (DAL), which is a little closer to SQL and should provide some extra flexibility (it also includes some scripts to auto-generate web2py DAL models for existing MySQL and PostgreSQL database tables). It includes jQuery, and there's a plugin for jQuery Mobile.

web2py has been around for about four years and is still very actively developed, with new releases every month (yet it has maintained backward compatibility of the documented API since the beginning, and will continue to do so).

InfoWorld recently published a review of six Python web frameworks, including web2py:

• Overview/Comparison
• web2py In-Depth