Building a client-server application for local programming contest system

Question

I am thinking to build a client server system, in which the server can receive user's code and compile it and return the result to the user. This system will be used for a local online programming contest at my university.

So basically, the user can write some code (PHP / C++ / Java, etc) and submit their code from the front end (web application). Once they click submit, this code has to be sent to the server, and then the server will compile the code and return the result back to the user. What is the best way to to this, so that the server can compile multiple language codes (C++, C, Java, PHP, Python, etc)?

What is the best practices in designing this system? Do I need to use web services to pass the user code to different services (1 service to receive and compile the c++ code, 1 service to receive and compile Java code, 1 for python, etc)?

Please share your idea, and experiences on this.

Answer 1

Check out Hudson, we use it at our company and it compiles our applications through Ant then gives us the compiled applications in rpm's.