Test php script

Page-Based Script Application Servers

Not every dynamic Web site requires the high-power Java and COM+ based application servers reviewed in the first section of this article. There are many ways to design Web applications, and a free or low-cost Web scripting language is often the best method for smaller, simpler, or less critical applications that need to be developed quickly.

There are a number of Web scripting languages worth considering. The key players are ColdFusion, Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP), and in the open-source world, Java server pages (JSP) and PHP. Also important (though not specifically designed for Web scripting) are Perl and Python.

All scripting languages are simple to learn and use compared with pure Java or C code. Developers used to Visual Basic will find ASP code easy. HTML coders will find ColdFusion familiar. C and Perl developers will see similarities to these languages in PHP.

Another way scripting languages make Web application development simpler is by mixing logic with HTML. But this is a double-edged sword: A collection of complex pages can easily turn into a jumbled mess. Both Microsoft (with ASP.NET) and Sun (with JSP tag libraries) are working on ways to let script developers separate presentation code from application logic.

The biggest downside to scripting languages is that upgrading a site to the level of reliability and performance of high-end application servers can be a major undertaking. JavaServer Pages and ColdFusion provide the best transition paths to higher-end site designs, and ASP is improving in this regard with the February, 2001 release of Microsoft's Application Center 2000 clustering product.

Each of these languages has an associated engine that runs the scripts on the Web server system. ColdFusion's markup language runs on servers ranging from the free ColdFusion Express Edition to the $4,995 cluster-capable Enterprise Edition.

Microsoft's ASP engine is included with the company's IIS Web server.

PHP runs on the PHP script engine, which can be downloaded at no cost from www.php.net.

JSP runs on many different servers. In fact, all Java 2 Enterprise Edition application servers (including those reviewed in the first section of this article) run JSP code. Here we test Tomcat, the open-source reference implementation of a JSP and servlet server.

Perl is most commonly run through the free mod_perl Apache Web server extension. Python also has a free Apache module available. Another choice is Zope, an open-source Python application server from Digital Creations.

These languages vary widely in developer tools support. For ASP, Microsoft offers Visual InterDev; for ColdFusion, there's the powerful ColdFusion Studio; for JSP, you can use one of many Java IDEs; Macromedia's Dreamweaver will create both JSP and ColdFusion code.

Integrated editors and debuggers for PHP, Perl, and Python are just starting to appear on the market. We used Zend Technologies' few-month-old Zend IDE 1.0 in our PHP testing, and Active State Corp. is close to releasing its Komodo, Visual Perl, and Visual Python IDEs for easier Perl and Python development.