Running code (loop) server side and retrieving output later on

Question

I am trying to do a simple program that keeps track of some internet data. I can get the data from a public JSON object, so that's not really the problem. I would like to automize the process as much as possible. I need to use HTML code and run it from a browser in order to keep it running. If I close the browser, the thread dies. Keeping threads alive until I kill them is pretty much the objective.

I know how to use C#, Python, Java, and C/C++. However I have no experience with server programming. The question basically is, how can I keep a program running on the server to later on be able to retrieve the output?

Note: I'm not sure of which tags to use.

Answer 1

Since you are new you have a bit of learning to do. I would highly reccomend you play with django and understand how to make a simple webpage with it. This (or ruby on rails) is how professionals serve webpages.

Once you understand how to install / use the framework you can look at this link for background tasks: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-background-task

In Ruby on Rails these are called rake tasks. After the task is done you usually retrieve the output using the database ( or write results to a file on disk).

If you don't know how to setup or run a server I would look at heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/. They have a free tier of servers which works easily with git and is seriously zero hassle. That link has instructions for the multiple languages they support. Good luck!!