Topic awaiting preservation: Which language...

Okay, here's a more general discussion question:

Which language is best for which use? What are the pro's and con's? How do I find my way through this pile of regular and script language?

I mean, we have, what, PHP, Perl, ASP, CGI, Java, Javascript.....and so on. I've yet to find a place on the web that just tells how one is actually different from the other, etc...

What are some thoughts on this?

late.

I'm a recent convert to PHP, and I suspect I may become a bit of an evangelist on this scripting language. Easy to learn, and damned powerful, does everything <I used to use more powerful (read "expensive") things like Java for. Way cool.

Your pal, -doc-

PHP - Fast development/deployment. Ease of integration into HTML pages due to its embedded nature. Best language for quick hacks.

Perl - Best set of text manipulation tools. Perl is designed as a 'glue' language to patch together all parts of an operating system. More elegant and faster than PHP, but still considerd a scripting language with less-than-ideal performance.

ASP - If you have to use ASP it will be dictated from above. Akin to PHP, but generally considered uglier. Knowledge of ASP will make you more marketable, but will probably not make you a happier person. If you are working with M$ products it will give you the fullest feature set.

CGI - Command Gateway Interface. You can write programs in almost any language this way, but it is generally used for Perl.

Java - There are many forms of this cross-platform object-oriented language. Java represents most of the latest theory in high-level language design. Unlike Perl, PHP, or even C, Java uses very strong typing and object oriented abstraction to prevent the kinds of bugs that can easily crop up in large-scale projects. Although Java is not known for it's amazing performance, Server-side Java (servlets) offer much better performance than scripting languages like Perl and PHP. As Doc's post hints at, this is a serious language for enterprise-level development.

Javascript - A client-side scripting language mainly designed for browsers. The things you do in javascript are dynamic behaviours you want your page to have after it's loaded without requiring more downloads. This overlaps very little with server side languages.

If you're looking to get into this stuff I don't think it really matters where you start. PHP will get you the quickest results, but Java will teach you the most about programming. Perl will probably give you the most practical knowledge the fastest, but C will teach you the hardcore computer principles behind every computer program (including operating systems). I don't know if you have any programming experience, but I would think PHP would be the most intuitive for beginning programmers. Perl is not hard either, but it offers more ways to do things than PHP, and it can be very cryptic (especially learning by example).



-jiblet

The poster has demanded we remove all his contributions, less he takes legal action.
We have done so.
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Don't follow his example - seek real life help first.

PHP rocks, especially when combining it with backend stuff like MySQL. PHP has a feature or function for everything.

I have to agree with Ini about Perl I use it more for talking to the OS I'm using for maintaining or day to day tasks (perl and crontab rocks) but for straight web dev PHP rocks especially on smaller scale sites. (I have doubts as to it's scalability but that's not a huge concern)



:[ Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. ]:

For smaller to medium size web development - PHP is the way to go! Very powerful but not hard to learn. Check out all the tutorials and tips and apps, etc at www.hotscripts.com/PHP and http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/index.phtml/fid/51

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