[Klug-general] Interactive Websites

[MacGyveR]

On Thursday 07 Dec 2006 10:02, Allen Brooker wrote:
> Peter Childs wrote:
> > Right Second post in ten minutes, its been rather quite so I thought
> > this place needed some livening up. Unless your all positing on the
> > wiki now and I can't be be bothered to look, I have wiki and forums..
> > and that comes from someone using gmail......
> >
> > I need to create a interactive web site, Rather not give details its
> > for work. Basically we have a large C++ Qt application and and want to
> > transfer it or enhance it with an interactive website.
> >
> > Anyway I'm trying to work out what tools to use because I'm getting a
> > bit lost.
> >
> > I mean the web just has too many bits.
> >
> > Php/Perl/Java/SSI (Pick one)
> > Html
> > Javascript (with all its ie/firefox/opera differences)
> > CSS (Yes thats a 4th complely different language)
> > AJAX (Which is really more of an idea than a langauge)
> > GWT (Oh that encapsulates most of the above into java)
> > JPEG
> > PNG
> > GIF
> > ActiveX
> > Flash
> >
> > Are you confused yet?
> >
> > I want to know where to start what to use.
> >
> > I've been looking at Dojo/Php/HTML/CSS but thats still 4 complete
> > different langaues to learn which does not help. And I'm a programmer
> > not a designer so I should be able to cope. But I don't know how a
> > Designer with no programming skills would cope with the web currently.
> >
> > Please bring back the paper and pencil at least then you only had to
> > chouse between type of pen/pencil and type of paper....
> >
> > Peter.
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> You're going to need to use a number of different "languages" whatever
> you do as each one serves a different purpose.
>
> HTML - This is a document markup language. It allows you to give
> structure to what would otherwise be a plain text document.
>
> CSS - This is a style markup language. It allows you to determine how a
> document should look on different mediums (in this case, notably the
> screen and possibly print - there's also stuff going on for other
> mediums such as speech at the moment. I'm not sure what stage they're at).
>
> JavaScript - This is a client-side scripting language that allows you to
> do programmed actions on the client side. This tends to give a snappier
> response than server side scripting, but at the cost of security (JS can
> be interfered with / results changed before sending to server) and
> reliability (JS may be disabled or features not implemented on the given
> platform).
>
> PHP / Python / Perl / whatever - These are server-side scripting
> languages that allow you to do programmed actions on the server.
> Personally I recommend PHP because it's easy to pick up and is well
> documented.
>
> Java / ActiveX - I wouldn't worry about these. Nobody really uses Java
> stuff on the web these days (except maybe JSP on the server side - but
> uptake is still very low compared to PHP). ActiveX is platform specific
> and there's lots of issues revolving around security and permissions.
>
> Flash - Don't get me started. Just stay away =P
>
> JPEG / PNG / GIF - These are different image formats, each ideal for
> different types of images (is it a photo, does it have large blocks of
> colour, etc).
>
> Hope that helps
>
> Allen
>
> _______________________________________________
> Kent mailing list
> Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent

the server side language depends on your application, factors such as size and 
integration to other systems might limit your choice here.

I would not over look java if you are planning something big, it has numerous 
features that help performance and sharing of code. It is now nearly open 
source so expect its user base to increase further.

PHP is great for small apps, but anything big forget it, php code normally 
spirals out of control, just have a look at projects such as mambo & phpbb.

perl is some where in the middle of the two above, it has been around longer 
than both of them (i think), it has a ton of prebuilt modules from CPAN and 
has some big features when used with mod_perl such as database connection 
pooling.

there are others such as plone or zope, which may provide you a RAD enviroment 
to get your apps online quickly.

it's best to stick with open source technologies as the support is usually 
better plus you are not tied into an OS or application server.

as will anything programming wise there is is normally more than one way to do 
it, the above is my view only.

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