Server-Side Scripting Languages - gozips.uakron.edu
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2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Server-Side Scripting Languages PHP (*.php) ASP/ASP.NET (*.asp/*.aspx) ColdFusion Markup Language (*.cfm) Java via JavaServer Pages (*.jsp) Perl (*.pl) Python (*.py) Ruby (*.rb) ANSI C Server Scripts TrustLeap G-WAN ANSI C Scripts (*.c) SMX (*.smx) Lasso (*.lasso) PHP Website: http://www.php.net Cost: Free (Open Source) License: PHP License Syntax: C-like, similar to Perl API: http://www.php.net/manual/en PHP is one of the most widely-used scripting languages because a) it is free, and b) it is easy to learn. PHP has extensive API documentation and built-in functionality for many common tasks. A simple Hello World script in PHP might look like this: <html> <head> <title>PHP Hello World Demo</title> </head> <body> <?php $greeting = "Hello World!"; echo $greeting; ?> </body> </html> Most Linux-based hosting packages provide PHP support as a basic part of any plan. To set up PHP on your own computer for development purposes, you can either install PHP itself, or use an all-in-one package that sets up a complete Apache, PHP, and MySQL environment, such as WAMP. PHP Web Servers: apache2triad - apache2, mysql, slimftp and xmail servers with php, python, perl, phpmyadmin. FoxServ - an Apache / mySQL / PHP installer package for Windows and Linux. XAMPP - includes the Apache web server, MySQL, PHP, Perl, a FTP server and phpMyAdmin. Uniform Server - Apache 2, PHP 5, MySQL, PERL 5, and phpMyAdmin. ASP.NET Website: http://www.asp.net Cost: Free License: Microsoft Syntax: Varies API: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.aspx 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 1 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems ASP.NET is also relatively easy to learn and costs nothing to run on a server. A simple Hello World script in ASP.NET might look like this: <html> <head> <title>ASP.NET Hello World Demo</title> </head> <body> <% Response.Write("Hello World!") %> </body> </html> ASP.NET is used widely on Windows-based hosting packages. ASP.NET uses (and thus requires) the .NET framework. To set up ASP.NET on your own computer for development purposes, you can install the .NET framework and ASP.NET, available here. ColdFusion Website: http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/ Cost: $1,299 USD (developer's edition is free) License: Adobe Syntax: XML-based API: CFML Reference ColdFusion is used in many enterprise-level web applications. It integrates tightly with other Adobe technologies and platforms such as Flex and AIR. To install and run ColdFusion on your own server, you'll need to purchase a ColdFusion license from Adobe. A good number of hosting providers, however, provide ColdFusion support, often for only a few dollars extra on any hosting plan. Some even offer it free of charge. Although a full-fledged ColdFusion license can be pricey, you'll likely only need the Developer Edition, which is free and allows you to develop ColdFusion applications locally. A simple Hello World script in ColdFusion might look like this: <html> <head> <title>ColdFusion Hello World Demo</title> </head> <body> <cfset var greeting = "Hello World"> <cfoutput>#greeting#</cfoutput> </body> </html> To set up Coldfusion on your own computer for development purposes, you can install the ColdFusion Developer Edition. (Adobe account required, free to signup) Python Website: http://www.python.org Cost: Free (Open Source) License: Python License 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 2 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Syntax: C-like API: http://docs.python.org/reference/index.html Python is a general purpose scripting language often used to develop web applications. Python is arguably a more powerful object-oriented language than PHP, but the two languages are very similar and learning one makes learning the other easy. A simple Hello World script in Python might look like this: greeting = "Hello World!" print greeting Note that on shared hosting, Python scripts usually run as CGI programs. To set up Python on your own computer for development purposes, you can install the Python libraries. Ruby Website: http://www.ruby-lang.org/ Cost: Free (Open Source) License: Ruby License Syntax: Unique API: Ruby Core Reference Ruby is a newer scripting language that aims to focus on simplicity and rapid development. Ruby is often seen paired with the Rails framework, an MVC framework built on Ruby for rapid application development. A simple Hello World script in Ruby might look like this: <html> <head> <title>Ruby Hello World Demo</title> </head> <body> <% greeting = "Hello World!" puts greeting %> </body> </html> Ruby is not always available on hosting packages, so be sure to check with your hosting provider and ask for Ruby support if necessary. To set up Ruby on your own computer for development purposes, you can install the Ruby libraries, available here. There are many other scripting languages that can be used to create dynamic websites. I've only listed some of the most common ones here. In addition to the languages themselves, many people often use a framework to aid in the development process. Popular MVC frameworks include Rails (for Ruby) and Cake (for PHP). Which Server-Side Language Is Right For You? Source: http://articles.sitepoint.com/print/server-side-language-right By: Kevin Yank October 9th, 2001 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 3 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems The market for server-side Web development solutions is a crowded one, these days! Perl, ASP, PHP, JSP, Cold Fusion and many more specialized choices abound. How is a newcomer supposed to know what to learn and what to use? Choosing a platform with which to build your first major database-driven Web application is nothing like choosing an HTML editor -- you can't just download a half dozen candidates and take them all for a test drive one lazy afternoon. Some of these languages can take an uninitiated Web developer months of work to truly understand and come to use comfortably. Unless you've got time to take a year off and curl up with a pile of books, you're going to need some guidance! In this article, I'll touch on each of the major options on the 'net today. For each, I'll explain the main selling points, the inevitable drawbacks, the relative costs and the neccessary compromises. I'll also profile the target developer for each of these technologes; that is, I'll shortly explain who they had in mind when the geniuses behind each of these technologies first created them. If any of these profiles remind you of your own situation, that should be a pretty good sign that you've found the right technology. The choice of a server-side programming language is a constant source of heated debate on the Internet today. Just like HTML editors, everyone has their favorite scripting language and most people have very good reasons for their choices. However, the very nature of server-side development -- that Web browser compatibility is not an issue -allows for two technologies that tackle the same problem in very different ways to both succeed in equal measure! For this reason, this article is not about deciding which platform is the best of all, but which is best for you. And hey: even if you still can't decide after reading this, or if it turns out you've already made the wrong choice, at least you'll have some idea of what you're up against! CGI/Perl Perl has been around longer than the World Wide Web itself. Version 1 was released on December 18th 1987, a full decade before the other languages covered in this article were even conceived! If you're new to this stuff, you're probably wondering how a server-side Web development language could have existed before the Web itself. You see, Perl was not created as a Web development language. Perl is, in fact, a multipurpose scripting language that was designed to handle tasks that involve a lot of text manipulation. Perl is very good at juggling pieces of text from various sources and combining them to form complete documents, which is exactly what is involved in server-side Web development. In the decade and a half since its creation, Perl has been expanded by means of modules, pieces of somtimescomplex functionality that can be plugged into the language to adapt it to various specialized purposes. One such purpose is the creation of dynamic Web content via the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) supported by the vast majority of Web servers. CGI is a standard means by which the Web server software can hand a browser's request for a Web page off to any program. Truth be told, CGI programs can be (and have been, on occasion) written in C/C++ if necessary. With its convenient handling of text, however, Perl has always been better suited to the job, and now that Perl comes with the CGI.pm module built in, most of the nitty gritty details of handling things like HTML form submissions are handled for you. As a final boon, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) [1] was founded to provide a centralized source for add-in modules, sample scripts, and in some cases fully developed Web applications. Today, versions of Perl are available for free on all major operating systems (from mainstream Windows to the most obscure Unix variant), and if you want to make it do something complicated, chances are someone has already written a module to make your job easier. The only downside to this language is that, since it wasn't purpose-built for Web development, it hasn't been optimized either for speed, scalability, or ease of use in a Web server setting. There are much easier languages out there to learn that can do just as much in the Web development arena, but Perl will also let you do a lot more than just Web development if you need to. Advantages: A mature language with over a decade of history, you're less likely to run into bugs in Perl than in any other server-side language. It's FREE, though a good book to show you the ropes may set you back a little. 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 4 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Most good Web hosts support Perl, so you probably won't have to pay extra for hosting. A vast network of dedicated Perl developers all over the world are at your disposal. Not only will they answer your questions on countless Perl discussion groups and mailing lists, but the CPAN archive (among others) will give you plenty of examples to work from. Drawbacks: Although some options exist to improve the situation, Perl doesn't scale especially well on busy servers. If you're looking to create a Web application that can field a lot of hits in a short space of time, you may want to look elsewhere. Perl is notorious for having five different ways of doing even the simplest thing, which can make learning from the work of others difficult if they didn't use the same method you're used to seeing. Additionally, Perl developers are notorious for finding the shortest way to write any given program, so you may be surprised to look at a sample script only to find that a complete ecommerce shopping cart script has been written in three lines of code, most of which is squiggles and backslashes. Perl is optimized for the Unix platform on which it was created, so if you expect to work on a Windows server, you likely have better choices performance-wise. Perl is Open Source software, which means there is no formal support for it. Despite the huge support community available to you, if something goes wrong, the only person you can really count on is yourself. Target Developer: Most Web developers who still work with Perl today tend to be Unix administrators and users who also put Perl to work in other areas of their system. For people like these, Perl is a comforting 'go anywhere, do anything' tool that can always be relied upon. If you're an inexperienced developer faced with the task of maintaining a site that was originally written in Perl, then grab a couple of good books [2] and prepare to add a truly powerful tool to your arsenal. ASP Before we go any further, let's get something out of the way for the purists out there. Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) is not a language. Rather, ASP is a framework that lets you combine one of a number of scripting languages (VBScript and JavaScript being the most popular choices) with an expandable set of software components. These components are treated as objects by the scripting language of your choice when it is used as part of the ASP framework. In essence, the power of ASP lies in its ability to combine relatively simple scripting languages like VBScript and JavaScript with powerful software components that are normally used by C/C++ developers. Okay, that's the Microsoft sales pitch out of the way. Now let's face facts: for all practical purposes, ASP might as well be a language. You simply get a choice between writing VBScript ASP or JavaScript ASP. Since most of the sample code out there is written in VBScript, your choice is all but made for you. Thus, ASP is generally considered to be a language for developing dynamic Web sites using VBScript, and under that umbrella it excels. ASP is easy to learn, powerful enough for most mainstream server-side Web development, and quite good performance-wise. ASP is closely linked to the Windows operating system (most of the software components that ASP relies on for its functionality are Windows-specific) and the Microsoft Internet Information Services Web server software. For these reasons, it is neither practical nor desirable to run a Web site based on ASP on anything but a Windows-based server. If you're setting up your own Web server, that means you must invest in a copy of Windows 2000 Server (although much of ASP runs on Windows 2000 Professional, IIS is not as scalable on that platform). If you're paying for Web hosting, it means paying for a Windows-based server, which is usually more expensive. Any way you look at it, ASP will cost you money to run. There are versions of ASP that can be run on an Apache server running under Linux, but unless you're specific aim is to move an existing ASP Web site onto a Linux server, there is little point. Another concern for ASP developers is the relatively limited nature of the components that come bundled with ASP. If all you need for your application is database connectivity, a search engine, email handling services, basic form processing and session tracking, then ASP will suit you just fine. Any less common functionality, however, will usually require you to install additional software components on your server. There are many companies out there that produce components for use with ASP that generate PDF files, interact with FTP servers, handle binary file 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 5 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems uploads and many other things. Unfortunately, these components, like ASP, tend to be commercial solutions that will cost you money. The upside of all this is that ASP is a very well supported technology, with all the backing of the Microsoft development community behind it. MSDN [3], the Microsoft Development Network provides a wealth of technical articles and reference material for ASP developers, and Microsoft support personnel will gladly investigate any problems you have in your development efforts (for a price). If at any time you absolutely need an answer to a question, you can rest assured there will be someone there whose job it is to give you the answer. Advantages: Fairly easy to learn, though programming is required. Built into Windows 2000 Server -- no installation headaches. Professional support available. Drawbacks: It's not free (unless you're already using a Windows server) Specialized functionality may require you to purchase commercial components, or develop them yourself in C/C++ or Visual Basic. If you're used to C-style syntax (shared by C/C++, Java, Perl, PHP, etc.), you may find the idiosyncrasies of VBScript difficult to come to grips with. Target Developer: If you've done any development with VBScript or Visual Basic, or have developed COM objects in Windows before, then this is definitely the Web development platform for you. Also, ASP is about as friendly to non-programmers as a programming language can get (but if you really hate programming, check out Cold Fusion, up next). If you're comfortable committing to Windows for your Web server platform and can afford the costs involved, or if the company you work for simply demands the level of support that Microsoft can provide, then ASP is a great technology to learn. Cold Fusion For the Web desginer who has never written a program before, the choice of server-side Web development platform can be a dreaded one. Whichever way you go, you're faced with an big, evil programming language to learn and your head just starts to ache... Originally created by Allaire [4] in 1995 and recently bought out by Macromedia [5], Cold Fusion was designed to be different. Instead of a scripting language, Cold Fusion gives you a set of tags to learn. Yes, tags -- just like those HTML tags you've come to know and love! Let's take the example of publishing information stored in a database on the Web. With the vast majority of serverside languages, you need to add code to your Web page to break out of HTML mode, connect to the database, request the entries from the database that you want to display, and process the results that the database sends you to display it as part of the Web page. In Cold Fusion, this common task is done with two tags: a <CFQUERY> tag, the attributes of which give the query a name and indicate what information to retrieve from which database. A second tag, <CFOUTPUT> refers to the query and lets you use standard HTML to format and display the results of the query. To the experienced programmer, this tag-based system may sound restrictive and inflexible, but with a built-in library of over 300 tags in the latest version, and the ability to add custom tags with more traditional programming languages like C/C++ and Java, Cold Fusion is anything but restrictive. Cold Fusion 5.0 includes tags that automatically generate graphs from database data, seamlessly provide search facilities on your Website, and even generate HTML forms with full JavaScript validation code. For the desginer who is forced to acquire server-side skills, Cold Fusion comes with the utopian promise of only having to learn a few new tags! Like ASP, Cold Fusion is a commercial server platform, which means it will cost you money to run it whether you set up your own server or rent space on a Web hosting provider. Unlike ASP, however, Cold Fusion is not tied to the Windows platform. Cold Fusion can integrate just as easily with Apache running under Linux as it can with IIS on Windows 2000. 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 6 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Advantages: Extremely easy to learn -- no programming required! Powerful and very scalable (latest version has support for both software- and hardware-based server clustering). Professional Support from Macromedia. Cross platform. Drawbacks: Expensive to set up your own server: Cold Fusion Server Professional 5.0 costs $1,295 Programmers may not like the tag-based development methods. Target Developer: Web designers who are comfortable with HTML but need to add server-side skills to their repertoire without having to learn a programming language. From the average developer's point of view, learning Cold Fusion is just like learning some new tags. Non-designers are also likely to warm up to the neatness of server-side programming with tags, so if you're tired of debugging your server-side scripts, Cold Fusion might be worth a look! PHP A relative newcomer in the server-side development arena, PHP has gained a large following among programmers with its familiar syntax and comprehensive function library. Also, its relatively simple syntax and low, low price (it's free!) has made it an attractive alternative to Microsoft's ASP for new developers. PHP has been dubbed by some to be 'Perl killer' of the server-side scripting world. For purposes of Web development, PHP can do almost everything that Perl can, and usually does it quicker and easier. Unlike Perl, which usually runs as a CGI program invoked by the Web server to handle each page request, PHP can integrate with your Web server so that it operates much more efficiently. PHP is an extremely capable language, with a vast array of built-in functions to do everything from tracking user sessions to generating dynamic graphics and even PDF files on the fly! No modules to install, no commercial add-ins to buy... PHP handles everything itself! In fact, just about the only weakness of PHP is that it's relatively difficult to expand the language to add non-standard functionality that is not handled by its built-in functions. Doing this requires a knowledge of C/C++ programming and is not for the faint of heart! Fortunately, you'd have to come up with a very esoteric Web application to require functionality that isn't already built into PHP. PHP is free, cross-platform, Open Source software. It integrates with all major Web servers on all major operating systems. This is a great boon for developers on a budget, because they can set up a complete Linux-based Web server with PHP support and not pay a dime for software! The downside of this, of course, is that there is no formal support for any problems you may encounter with PHP. Also since PHP is such a new and actively developed technology, there are still occasional bugs found in the latest versions. Don't let these niggles put you off, though -PHP has an extremely active user community (a large segment of which can be found in our very own SitePoint Forums [6]!) that is always eager to help you with any stumbling blocks, and the current versions of PHP are quite stable and reliable. Advantages: Fairly easy to learn, especially for developers with C/C++, Java, or Perl experience. Active user community willing to lend you a hand getting started. Everything's built right into the language. It's free! Cross-platform. Drawbacks: This language was designed to be programmer-friendly, which unfortunately makes it a little less friendly to non-programmers. 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 7 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Target Developer: Web developers on a budget who enjoy simple programming (e.g. JavaScript), or don't mind learning how. PHP gives you a great deal of power with relatively simple code structure, but may not be suited to very high end applications that aren't supported by PHP's built-in features. Java Java is arguably the most powerful platform for server-side Web development today. From small Java programs (Servlets) that handle Web page requests to JavaServer Pages (JSPs) that combine HTML with custom tags and Java code, and even up to Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), software components with sophisticated abilities to carry information seamlessly across servers and networks to accommodate distributed applications, Java is truly a hot technology. An experienced Java Web developer can easily pull in salaries in excess of US$100,000/yr. As you might expect, there's a reason for that: Java is not easy to learn! Unlike scripting languages like Perl, ASP and PHP, Java is a fullfledged programming language fully capable of writing big programs! Someone with a little programming experience could expect to pick up a working knowledge of the Java language in a month or two with the help of a good book, and in another month would likely be able to pick up the basics of simple server-side programming with Java. Now, if you're interested in making a career in server-side programming then that may not seem like much, but if you just want to get something working quickly, a simpler language like PHP can have you up and running in a week or less! Java is renowned for its Write One, Run Anywhere (WORA) philosophy, and indeed Java can be run on all major Web servers and all major operating systems. Java Web applications can also be bundled up into a standard Web Application Archive (.WAR) files that can then be installed on any Java-enabled Web server, no matter the platform. The makers of Java planned for this mechanism to be used to distribute commercial Web applications for use on Java Web servers; however, in my experience, Java Web applications tend to be customized solutions to complex problems, rather than sellable solutions that you can buy online. Many different vendors produce the plug-ins that enable Web servers like Apache and IIS to run Java Web applications, and while most of them are free for personal use and development, the majority must be paid for before you can use them to serve a commercial Website. Advantages: Extremely powerful and scalable. Cross-platform. Most Java server plugins are free for personal and development purposes. Drawbacks: Java takes a lot of work to learn. Don't even start if you're not serious about learning object oriented programming. Most Java server plugins must be paid for if they are to be used to host a commercial Web site. Target Developer: Serious developers who want the ultimate in power, flexibility and scalability for their Web applications, and don't mind paying for it in sweat, tears and development time. Summary In this article, we looked at the relative features, benefits and downfalls of all the major server-side development options available today: Perl: a mature, cross-platform language that can be hard to understand ASP: Microsoft's powerful, Windows-based framework Cold Fusion: a powerful, tag-based option for non-programmers PHP: a cross-platform, open-source alternative with lots of features built in Java: the ultimate in power and flexibility, for serious programmers 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 8 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Hopefully armed with the low-down on all these options, you're feeling better-equipped to tackle the big decision of which to learn and use for your next project. If you're still in need of some guidance, be sure to drop by our ServerSide Internet Development forum at SitePoint Forums [7]. We'll be glad to help! [1] http://www.cpan.org/ [2] http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/435 [3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/ [4] http://www.allaire.com/ [5] http://www.macromedia.com/ [6] http://www.sitepointforums.com/ [7] http://www.sitepointforums.com/ Server side scripting languages in a web hosting account Server side scripting languages makes it possible to create advanced web sites. This page contains descriptions of the most common scripting languages available in web hosting accounts. For making advanced dynamic web sites, you need some kind of server side scripting. Server side scripts are programs that are executed on the server, and can be used in many ways. Template based web sites and shopping carts are just two examples. The languages used for these tasks are normal programming languages with special libraries/packages for server side scripting. 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 9 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Not all web hosting accounts support all common scripting languages, so this is an important factor in your search for the perfect web host. Here is a short presentation of the most common programming languages used for server side scripting. ASP/ASP.net ASP, or Active Server Pages, is a technology developed by Microsoft for making advanced web pages. The most common language for programming ASP is VBScript. It is available in most web hosting accounts on Microsoft servers. There is also a version for Unix servers called Chillisoft ASP, but it is not as stable as real ASP. There are plenty of online ASP resources too. ASP.net is the next generation ASP technology which allows you to use any .net-enabled language to program your site. The 2 most common languages for .net web programming is VB.net and C#. Both are good choices for both desktop and web applications. VB.net is perhaps easier to learn, and C# is more used for enterprise applications. JSP/Servlets Or Java for web applications. Java is perhaps the most popular language for enterprise level applications, so professional programmers can take their skills to the web. JSP means Java Server Pages and consists of JSP tags mixed in with html. It is best used as the presentation layer of a Java web application, although you can build JSPonly applications. The logic behind the application is normally hidden below a JSP and is a pure Java program called a servlet. JSP's are also compiled into servlets by the JSP engine the first time it is executed for faster execution time on later requests. Java is a big and complicated language so it can be hard to learn. One Java benefit is that it enforces good programming techniques, so if you learn Java you will probably become a decent programmer too. JSP/Servlets add to your hosting expenses because of the cost of JSP/Servlet engines, or the high stress the free JSP/servlet engine Apache Tomcat puts on the server. ColdFusion A scripting language developed by Allaire, then bought by Macromedia. Macromedia ColdFusion Server is not free, the Standard edition of ColdFusion MX 6.1 costs $1299/server. You can, however, install a free "developer edition" on your computer for developing and testing your applications. The developer edition is just like the standard edition, except it is limited to one IP address. It is possible to set up a freeware hosting environment for ColdFusion. The basic version of New Atlanta's ColdFusion server BlueDragon is available for free. It runs on top of a JSP/Servlet engine like Apache Tomcat. But I don't know any hosting companies who are running this combination. Although this platform is free, it will cost at least the same as JSP/servlet hosting since Apache Tomcat is the underlying engine. ColdFusion consist of xml/html-like tags, so it is very easy to learn if you already know html. ColdFusion is also well suited to fast development of not too complicated web applications. Perl Perl has been the most used scripting language for web applications. It is a very powerful language with many advanced features, and there are 1000's of perl scripts available for free in various scripting directories. Perl scripting is available in most cheap web hosting packages. PHP PHP, or PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is an open source language and has gained enormous popularity the last years. It is easy to learn and there are many readymade scripts available. Almost every cheap web hosting package includes PHP. It is easy to learn for a programming language with many books and web sites dedicated to it. 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 10 of 11 2440:212 Multimedia & Web Elements The University of Akron Summit College Dept of Business Technology Computer Information Systems Python Although Python was created in 1989, it is not yet as widespread as PHP, ASP or Perl, and Python is not a language that is supported by most web hosting companies. It is easy to learn though, has a clean, elegant syntax and is perfectly suited to typical web applications. The drawback is that there really is no standard web application framework for Python. Besides its usefulness in web applications, Python is also a good choice for many other types of programs, like GUI applications and utility scripts. If you want to use one programming lanuage for everything, take a closer look at Python Your choice The "standard" choice for server side scripting on Unix/Linux platforms is PHP. It is easy to learn and fast to program in. Java (JSP/Servlets) is the preferred choice for bigger projects/enterprises. Those who are planning to become expert Windows programmers can't go wrong with ASP.net, with language choices for both beginners and more experienced programmers. ColdFusion, Perl and Python are also good programming languages with their unique strengths. As a beginner, put focus on learning programming. The languages are just tools, and most programming techniques can be used with most programming languages. With that said, pick one language and stick to it in the beginning. Using different languages will just be confusing for beginners. For experienced programmers, new scripting languages are easy to learn. Published March 01/2002. Updated June 12/2005 Forever © Good Web Hosting Info Hosted by Site5. 533575057 Enoch E. Damson Page 11 of 11
