What are the differences?

[Tonatiuh]

Whats better?
My company is going to train me to develop web applications. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the diferent tools, and languages? Whats the difference between Java and Javascript, etc?

I use Oracle as my Database and I am DBA and Visual Basic Developer.

Thanks for you comments.

[Wynd]

Java and JavaScript are two very different things, despite the similarity of the names. JavaScript is a scripting language you can use for little things like submitting forms, asking for input, etc. It's all client-side. Java, on the other hand, is an actual programming language that you have to compile before it can be run. Then you put these mini-programs, called applets, in web pages, and you can generate dynamic content from a database or even write a small game. So, it really depends on what you want to do.

[Wynd]

And for server-side scripting languages, these are the "main three":

1. Perl: Pretty good. Uses CGI, but you need to have a line to print out each HTML line.

2. ASP: Also pretty good. Pros are you can easily embed it into HTML and the language will be easy for you to learn if you are a VB developer. Cons are it only runs on IIS and it's slow.

3. PHP: The best in my opinion. Also easy to use especially if you know some C, and it is very fast and runs on any machine. You can also use special tags like ASP to embed code into HTML.

[Tonatiuh]

Hello Wynd, this is the main objective:

I have developed a large application (800 pages of printed code) using Visual Basic 6, Oracle 8i as database and Seagate Crystal Reports for reporting and generating Word and Power Point documents within the app. This app is currently working for more than 250 users in 6 cities.

I interact with PL/SQL stored procedures from the VB code and with the Crystal Reports reports, modifying the SQL query for the reports at run-time.

My boss want to "put" this app into the web. This is, he wants to develop another app which does exatcly the same but running on a web browser. This is because is very hard to deploy a new version due to the distance between the users. And the app is being added with new features continously.

He asked me for the courses I need to take and the products he needs to buy to do all this.

[filburt1]

Originally posted by Wynd
And for server-side scripting languages, these are the "main three":

4. JSP, integrates Java with HTML.

[Wynd]

Yeah, well...uhhh... *runs away*

[daveejay]

Also JSP actually gets compiled the first time and is then cached for subsequent requests (until it is updated then the process begins again) so the pages are slow the first hit and extremely fast after that. Compare this to say ASP (which runs on the scripting engine either in VB Script or JScript). Each time you request the page, it is compiled on the fly. And therefore slower

DJ

[da_silvy]

i agree with wynd, php is the best

[CiberTHuG]

Originally posted by daveejay
Also JSP actually gets compiled the first time and is then cached for subsequent requests (until it is updated then the process begins again) so the pages are slow the first hit and extremely fast after that. Compare this to say ASP (which runs on the scripting engine either in VB Script or JScript). Each time you request the page, it is compiled on the fly. And therefore slower

DJ

I had always heard ASP will cache the page. Anyone have any doco on this?

[daveejay]

THis might help:

http://www.serverpages.com/java_serv...?categoryid=24

[daveejay]

My Bad, wrong terminology ASP is indeed cached but not compiled first, I bow down to Ciber's great intelligence ;-)

I found the following which may shed some light.

Active Server Pages (ASP), is an open, compile-free application environment in which you can combine HTML pages, scripts, and ActiveX server components to create powerful Web-based business solutions. ASP 1.0 ships with IIS 3.0, while ASP 2.0 ships with IIS 4.0. There are other topics that cover ASP 2.0 related information such as ADO 1.5, IIS 4.0, ASP Applications, ASP Sessions, and Active Components. If you are looking for an answer to an error message you might want to look in the Errors Topic.

Source: http://www.15seconds.com/faq/ASP%202.0/default.htm

[CiberTHuG]

Nah, I was just reading the differences between ASP and PHP. And I understand they both cache, but ASP calls on a seperate scripting engine (WSH or ISAPI?), while PHP is interpreted by the web server.

I could be remembering that wrong. But I do remember that both of them are multithreaded, which is a plus over CGI. I imagine that the JSPs are running in a VM, which is multithreaded, too, but seperate from the web server.

[daveejay]

Yeah, certainly in IIS and using JRun as the Servlet engine, there is a Global ISAPI filter connector .dll which passes all JSP requests from IIS through the plugin to the JRUN engine which runs on a JRE (Java Runtime Environment). I believe that ASP runs on WSH.