The Web Platform Wars – Server Side Scripting, the Big 4, and why it Matters to You

Posted by Samuel Adams - Technical Director on 11 May 2009 | 0 Comments

While this blog, in general, focuses more on the business side of internet marketing, there is no escaping the need to have at least a fundamental understanding of how dynamic content is generated and presented on the web server tier. Of course, small business owners who maintain their own websites simply must learn a little server side scripting, but bigger businesses that hire or contract out their web development should have at least a passing familiarity with server side technologies in order to properly evaluate and understand the development process. In this post we will look at the top four server side technologies and discuss how they can be used to drive your business.

The grandfather of the modern server side programming world is Java. This venerable language, developed by Sun Microsystems, runs on millions of web servers but is beginning to show its age. While Java is extremely powerful, and skilled developers can use it to build any kind of web application imaginable, building web systems based on Java requires an extensive skill set. Learning server side java is a very daunting task for the non technical person and hiring programmers who have the necessary skills can be an expensive undertaking.

The server side scripting language PHP is quite the opposite of Java. It is an open source language, meaning it was built by the developer community and not by any one company. PHP is a much smaller and simpler language than Java, and it is possible for non programmers to pick up enough knowledge of PHP to build simple dynamic and database driven applications. For this reason, PHP is currently the most popular server side technology for small to medium sized businesses. Since PHP is free, nearly every web host provides it on their servers. The drawback of PHP is that it is not as scalable as some other server side technologies. As businesses grow and the need arises to code much more complex business logic, it is often necessary to switch to a more robust and scalable technology.

While Java is one such possibility, currently the most rapidly growing server side technology is the .Net framework developed by Microsoft. While it is fun to disparage Microsoft for its questionable business practices, even the most diehard anti-Microsoft developer has to acknowledge the success of the .Net platform. Developing in the .net environment falls somewhere between Java and PHP in ease of development and deployment, but it is just as powerful as, and many would argue even more powerful than, Java. The drawback of .Net is that, unlike Java and PHP, it is not free. A licensed version of the server software required to develop and deploy .Net applications can be quite expensive.

And last but not least, we come to the new kid on the block, Ruby on Rails. Ruby is a fairly new programming language that has gotten serious traction in recent years in the developer community for its clean and logical syntax. The Rails platform provides some of the plumbing underneath that allows developers to build dynamic web applications with incredible speed. A skilled Ruby on Rails programmer can develop applications in a fraction of the time it takes using other technologies. However, Ruby on Rails is still fairly new, so it can be difficult to find developers who are comfortable with it and there are some questions regarding how well it will scale to enterprise levels.

Any dynamic website must user server side scripting to deliver content. Having a little knowledge of the most common server side platforms is necessary for any business owner, whether he or she is looking to create or update a website or to hire someone to do it for them.