I've been using PHP for about a month and I like it cos it's so powerful. I don't know about the others like CGI, Perl..etc. Can anybody tell me the MAIN Difference between these languages? I'd really love to try them out if I know their advantages, pros and cons. I've been searching the internet for answers, but they are too complicated and use too many jargons that newbies like me don't understand.

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In my opinion, you have to use a little bit of all the ones you need to in order to make a awesome website... no one language will make your site super awesome... you must combine them....

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I will say this though that the best script is a secured script, meaning that the less security holes there are the less chance that a script kiddie will get in and start messing around with your site. Of course though in today's programming languages such as PHP, ASP, AJAX, XML, XHTML those are the most structured and currently used languages. I don't here to much in CGI and perl these days, although they are still being used in some applications.

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PHP is a nice language, but as you may or may not know there was an entire month where there was hole after hole found in the interpreter. I'm satisified with it and see nothing wrong with it, but people that like to define their variables criticize that you can't define them.

Perl is another nice one, but it has a lot of shorthand available so you can make your code look extremely dirty and near unreadable. It's also very old - probably 20 - 30 years old, so it's pretty stable. Some people say it's slow, but it's also found frequently both on Windows and Unix/Unix-like servers.
CGI is a library for Perl that extends its capabilities as far as I know.

I don't really like python, but it's an option. It's relatively new and it works, from what I've heard about it, very well. But, it forces indentation of your code, which can be a pain at times if you don't like how they want you to indent it. It also doesn't really have a lot of support on many web servers. You may want to start your own if you like it enough.

Ruby on Rails is another option. It's slow as tar from my experience but people really like to program in it. I don't like OOP either, so it's a choice I wouldn't do. But if you like OOP, go ahead and use it. It, too, doesn't have a lot of support.

Some pros like to use ASP, ColdFusion, and JSP. These are rather expensive and work on a handful of servers (except for ASP) and unless you're making them for a client that specifically requests them, I suggest you don't even bother with them.

Keep in mind that whatever scripting language you choose, you will need a markup language to go with it if you're designing a web page, or you'll make a bland, and very uninteractive site. This means HTML or XHTML with CSS. They are not programming languages, but you still need to learn them.


No, no, no. This is a REALLY REALLY BAD idea. Programmers don't write code in C and then dabble with BASIC to make a good program. Considering that no matter which language you use, you will have relatively the same feature set and are capable of getting the same result, it is better to be consistent in what language you are scripting in. Otherwise, it can get really confusing, and even worse is when you try and interface the code together using only scripting languages (since you are dealing with an interpreter, you're really going to make it hard on yourself if you dabble with multiple scripting langauges on one site at times, unlike a programmer which can compile every object file into one file). Nearly everything these days is done with one scripting language - no matter if IBM's web page or Bob Smith's mega ultra super-duper homepage.

The language, really doesn't matter. What matters is you, and what you can do in each language. Some people like Perl better than PHP, and can do better things in Perl than PHP because they are more proficient and like the syntax better. You need to find the language with the featureset that fits you best to make your site the best it can be.

 

 

 

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I'm an idiot... I was far to general... I was mostly reffering to using css and html/xhtml, etc. with php, etc... I was far too general sorry about that.

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If you have time I would suggest you try a few of them out and see how you like it. Although I'm only fimilar with php at this stage I do want to see what all the fuss is about with ruby on rails but sadly I dont have the time. I'm asumming also it would take you a good few months to get to know each language well enough to understand its capibilites to a high level and apply them in your own work. I'm pretty happy about having so many options available instead of being forced to use just one language.

I've seen asp page codes before although I think its too bulky for my liking. What I mean by this is although the functionality seems to be there the code tags required are seem to be large. They are all asp custom tags and having worked on PHP only I didnt really like seeing all those tags in my source. I personally think php gives you abit more control over how you want to build your sites. That being said lol I have not even built any pages in asp, I just have seen a video where a guy shows you how to build a some what complex ajax form with asp and I wasnt too impressed with the amount of asp tags involved.

I think it all comes down to your own peference. All these scripting langauages seem to be advanceded enough to give you the functions you need. its just different in how you are able to use them. I hope that makes some sense

like I said give them a try if you have time and happy programming.

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Thank you all for the information. It really helps me a lot cos I've just started using these languages, and now I'm really beginning to enjoy it. I've set up a PHP-based forum and everyday, I learn something new. Now i know how to create a simphe PHP shoutbox, a guestbook, and a basic php page. It's great.

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