Choosing web techonology?

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petermichaux@yahoo.com - 17 Feb 2006 18:29 GMT

Hi,

Does anyone know of a survey of pros and cons of using the various
popular web technologies? I've found that over the past year I've
investigated many combinations people use as I've been getting more
sophisticated and my desire for a more modern user interface has
evolved. There are people that champion each approach but a lot of them
seem to do so only because they are comfortable with one particular
combination of languages and/or haven't investigated potentially better
combinations.

Thanks,
Peter

Examples...

Server-Side Options
===============
PHP5
PHP5 with ORM and MVC framework
Ruby on Rails
Java something-or-other

Client-Side Options
==============
HTML/CSS
HTML/CSS/JavaScript (DHTML)
Flash
JWS app

Server-Client Communication Options
===========================
The usually HTTP Get and Post
AJAX
SOAP

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Todd - 17 Feb 2006 18:48 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
> AJAX
> SOAP

Peter,

You forgot Perl, Perl, Perl and Perl for the server side. Did I
mention Perl.

Todd

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Oliver Wong - 17 Feb 2006 18:54 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
> ==============
> HTML/CSS

I can almost guarantee that your solution will involve some HTML.

> HTML/CSS/JavaScript (DHTML)
> Flash
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> AJAX
> SOAP

As for the rest of the stuff, you want to use the right tool for the
job. Unfortunately, you haven't said anything about what job it is you're
trying to do beyond "modern UI" which might mean different things to
different people. If you've got the skills, do like Google Map and use
JavaScript. If you don't have the skills, then don't even try, because I
find it very irritating when a Flash/JavaScript/AJAX/whatever solution
breaks the functionality of my backward and forward buttons on the browser.

Want to wow users and shut out the visually impaired? Use Flash. Want to
let people just get their work done? Use vanilla XHTML and CSS.

- Oliver

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petermichaux@yahoo.com - 17 Feb 2006 18:58 GMT

Perhaps such a survey could be based on case studies with various
requirements and complexity: a blog, an ecommerce site, etc.

Peter

ps. Didn't forget perl. Just some examples.

Reply to this Message

Rick Umali - 20 Feb 2006 18:49 GMT

> Perhaps such a survey could be based on case studies with various
> requirements and complexity: a blog, an ecommerce site, etc.

Check out:

http://www.optaros.com/wp/wp_5_cms_report.shtml

This web page has a PDF white paper on various Open Source "solutions" for
a few kinds of websites. I saw this paper mentioned on /.

Per other replies, the OP didn't say what particular job he wanted to do,
but I found the paper a pretty useful survey. NOTE: The paper describes
"high level" tools (wiki, Roller, Zope) as opposed coding technologies
(Perl, python), although how the solutions are coded is described.

Me? I use VIM and HTML. A Perl. And Blogger.

Signature

Rick (www.rickumali.com) Umali

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google@impliedbydesign.com - 20 Feb 2006 23:44 GMT

Hello,

I've seen this topic batted around many times, and ASP.NET and PHP seem
to float to the top, pretty equally in terms of server-side solutions.
ASP.NET has some nice tools (i.e. Visual Studio) and PHP is super
flexible. I use PHP and have come to the conclusion that it doesn't
really matter which language you choose, as you get better you'll
figure out how to do what you need to do in the language you're
familiar with.

For client-side and client-server-side, hopefully you'll end up with a
lot of languages in your toolbox. You can accomplish a lot with
Javascript and Ajax, but Flash / Actionscript can do some things those
things just can't. CSS and HTML are common denominators no matter what
solutions you end up using.

Chris S.
Implied By Design LLC.
http://www.impliedbydesign.com
Free Web Design Programs and Scripts
http://www.impliedbydesign.com/free-software-scripts.html

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Jeffrey H. Coffield - 21 Feb 2006 01:25 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
> AJAX
> SOAP

For pure server performance, we use FastCGI connected to compiled web
applications on a Alpha/VMS Cluster. This approach requires you to
actually understand how everything connects but it has been benchmarked
at over 50 times faster than Java/Tomcat. The front end is mostly
HTML/Javascript but we also have a few Java applications that fit in
well. The big problem with Java is ensuring the client has the right JVM
loaded.

Jeff Coffield

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