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Thou shalt not follow the NULL pointer, for chaos and madness await thee at its end. — Henry Spencer Doubting Client"Script languages! Programming languages! What's the difference?"For three decades the answer has been, "Programs are compiled, while scripts are interpreted", but this is no longer the important difference (modern web programs are partly compiled, partly interpreted, giving us most of the advantages of both.) Now, the essential distinction is that programming languages are strongly typed; that is, a single data item is either a string or an integer (or something else entirely), never a string in one line of code and an integer in the next. Strong data typing has enormous positive implications for the security, reliability, maintainability and scalability of websites. [Interested readers should stay tuned while I try out Ruby On Rails, which purports to throw all of the above into a cocked hat.] |
Appropriate TechnologyInteractive web technology began with simple scripting languages adapted from platform shell scripting. It advanced quickly to powerful, flexible, web-specific scripting languages, such as Microsoft's ASP/VBScript and cross-platform PHP. In the new millennium we finally have a choice of full-fledged programming languages at our disposal, with enormous libraries of built-in, reusable functional code. Mature Enterprise Java and Microsoft's upstart, but formidable, .NET Framework are the stars of the web development world and should remain so for the foreseeable future. Despite the division of the world into pro and anti-Microsoft camps, the two environments provide similar rock solid architectures built upon pure object-oriented foundations. A web application built on either platform can be, not a loose collection of cooperating web scripts, but rather an instance of a real application, residing on the server in the same sense that a desktop application resides on the workstation. Though now eclipsed by more powerful technologies, Active Server Pages and open-source PHP retain a vital place in the modern web-development picture. While complex professional applications have been built on these scripting platforms, today they are best suited to rapid development for relatively simple sites. Applications can be built very quickly at somewhat lower cost, and this may be appropriate for promotional sites, single purpose sites, and sites with an anticipated short lifespan; any site, in fact which requires neither high security nor long-term maintenance (please see the Doubting Client sidebar). Thoughtful reading:
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