[Wolves] Scripting language comparisons

Wed Apr 30 09:59:00 2003

Hi,

I've been thinking about doing a similar comparison, I work at an ASP shop
and I need some good arguements about why we should change and what to, so
when you've writen it any chance of a copy?
Here's is my brief summary of ASP:-

Active Server Pages (ASP) is a multi-language scripting platform, you can
use jscript (server side javascript with a microsoft twist), perlscript
(perl available from activestate.com), or vbscript (stripped down VB), but
in practice vbscript is by far the most common (I've never seen anyone use
anything else). This language is used to glue together objects provided by
other components (ASP is actualy a set of objects and the scripting engine
is a seperate but closly related thing)

As a language VBScript is a less then stellar, (no optional arguments to
functions, classes but no inheritance) stripped down version of VB so if you
know one the other is pretty straight forward. The real strength is in the
ASP object system which provides easy access to cookies, post variables,
http headers etc and the ADO objects which provide the database connectivity
in a one size fits all approach rather then PHPs one set of functions per
databse type. You can also create (or download from the web) third party
objects written in VisualC/VB/Java etc which can then be accessed from
vbscript. These are a real help, overcoming some of the shortcomings and
branching the system in new directions, with mail, encyption, DNSlookup,
graphing, and even random bible quote componenets all available for a fee
(www.serverobjects.com provide a few examples).

While ASP is designed for Microsofts IIS, you can get an Apache module that
provides the ASP objects using perlscript as its scripting language, but
frankly why bother, if you have to learn a new language anyway why not go
all the way and learn PHP. You can also get ASP for unix from
www.chillisoft.com (bought out by Sun a few years ago) for a $495 fee you
can run ASP on linux/solaris/etc complete with VBscript.

ASP is now 5+ years old and is depreciated in favour of ASP.NET, if your
looking to learn a webscripting language dont start here, your time could be
much better spent learning something with a future. If you already know VB
or VBScript, only intend to use Microsoft, and dont intend to make a career
out of it though ASP can provide a pretty easy and (with the right
components added in) powerfull scripting platform.

A (very) brief summary of the alternatives to ASP can be found at
http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/index.html

chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Jono Bacon [mailto:jonobacon@yahoo.com]
Sent: 30 April 2003 00:12
To: wolves@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [Wolves] Scripting language comparisons

Heya,

I reckon this is gonna be a big thread. :)

My view is that these different languages have
different uses unless you go hardcore with one of them
(such as using JavaScript for everything).

PHP / ASP

PHP and ASP are essentially very similar with PHP
being free and ASP not. These languages are mainly
used for web development, database applications etc,
although PHP has application as a shell scripting
language and for writing GUI apps with PHP-GTK. PHP is
a good powerfull language used in the LAMP setup
(Linux Apache MySQL PHP). In this setting PHP offers a
pretty solid platform for web development and I use it
all the time.

ASP is a good language and generally easier to
understand than PHP and offers its own additional
functionality in the same way PHP has its own
additional functionality.

JavaScript

I mainly use Javascript as the glue in applications.
IT is usefull for little bits of dynamic functionality
such as user interface issues or filling a page with
values. The problem though is that it is client side
and hence can be turned off or not work in older or
knackered browsers (such as old versions of
Konqueror). Although some people use it fully for web
development, that seems a bit hackish to me and a
scripting language such as PHP or ASP is better  Or
python as Aq may suggest.

XML

This is something that I think you should consider.
XML is an important chunk in the system for defining
data structures that can be passed between sites. XML
can be used in conjunction with XSL to create
different XML stylesheets for displaying the XML data.
This is all really usefull if you need to share
information from one site to another in a common data
format.

  Jono

--- Matthew Revell <matt@understated.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm writing an article on the comparative advantages
> of the various 
> scripting languages that can be used for websites.
> It's aimed at online 
> content professionals - website editors, information
> architects, online 
> writers etc. - to give them an idea of the languages
> that are available.
> 
> The languages/technologies I'm going to cover are:
> 
> PHP
> ASP
> Perl
> Python
> JSP
> Coldfusion.
> 
> If anyone has any views on these with regard to one
> another, I'd love to 
> hear them! I'd give you a shout in the credits :)
> 
> Matthew.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Wolves mailing list
> Wolves@mailman.lug.org.uk
> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/wolves

=====
Jono Bacon - http://jono.dyndns.org/
KDE Developer - Freelancer - Musician

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