I have a web frontend which uses data from a task that must be run frequently in bulk (which takes more time than I'd like to use PHP for). The data can be stored in a database so I was planning on writing a Java application to run the task and use the database as a middleman to get the results of this task accessible to the web.
Problem is, a "preview" of this data is needed occasionally. IE, sometimes the user needs to request a sample of the data (which can be computed quickly) to be generated on cue.
This presents a real problem for me, this preview IS more suited for a language like PHP even though it's essentially the same task. It's just two cases, in case A there are real jobs from many users to be done so the task takes a sufficiently long time to complete (longer than a PHP request can hold), in case B it's a baby job for just one user ran on the spot which could be completed in PHP without issue.
I don't want to write this code twice, it would make maintenance a nightmare so I kind of need to pick a language and stick with it. The frontend is designed but not implemented so I have an oppertunity to write the site in PHP, Ruby or Python if need be. I know PHP, so I would only consider switching to Python or Ruby if one of those languages offered a solution to this problem. but I know so little about these languages that I really cannot begin to know if they offer a solution without learning them (which I don't have the time for atm).
In short, is there a non-hackish way to write short, quick event-driven code AND long-running repetitive code with Ruby on Rails or Python? If not do you have any ideas how to satifsy these two cases with either PHP or Java?
