Hi there,
to strengthen my skills, i want to write a small bot, crawling some pages and aggregating the content for an RSS Feed.
i think, this shouldn't be a problem at all, but i'm not sure, which technology to use.
the easiest way would be (imo) to write a little script, running it with a cronjob continuously.
But i think that wouldn't be a big challenge and so I'm searching some alternatives.
i am able to write in some different scripting languages (ruby, php, python) and different java technologies. i think Java Server Faces and an application server sounds quite interesting, because until now i just used tomcat and its frontend to deploy my apps.
i know that jboss and co are much more powerful (than the way i used them) and so this could be an option.
or do you have other ideas?
how could a routinely crawler-job be realised with an app. server? do they support s.th. like crons oder do i have to write such a "clock-engine" by myself?
Thanks!!