Hi Aaron,
according to your profile, you're a student. I don't know if this is a project for class or for your thesis, but if you actually want to develop a piece of software that will be used in a company, there are many other things to consider. The best choice of programming language isn't determined just by how suitable it is for your problem, but also by things like existing expertise (developers, IT department / maintenance / support, end users) and costs / preferences / real or perceived pros and cons of certain types of languages (compiled/interpreted, higher/lower level, free/licensed, etc). Also, your program would handle highly sensitive data, so information security would be crucial - crucial to have, and crucial to be able to prove in an audit. Do you have to consider any of these points? (Because all of these considerations are certainly out of the scope of this site.)
On the other hand, if this project is just for fun, or a proof of principle, or a learning experience, or something to be used by fellow students and researchers, then Mathematica is a great choice. Even if you want to sell your program eventually and have to switch technologies for that, Mathematica is still a useful prototyping language. Just don't expect to be selling it within a few months. As far as help from forums goes, stick to Sean's suggestion. You will get the most out of any forum if you have a small, well-defined problem and it's obvious that you've put a lot of work into it already.