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From what I undersand CGI & ASP aren't programming and/or scripting languages.
Then what are they... "standards" .... if so ... standards of what.
What languages can you use to program CGI and what languages can you use to program ASP??? Are CGI & ASP different versions of the same thing ???
Is PHP a language or standard like CGI & ASP???
How can a page on the Internet end w/ blabla.php or blabla.cgi or blabal.asp but never w/ balbal.c or blabla.pl
Wow! You can find all of your answers here. Just type in the little search box on the front page and I am sure there will be scads of stuff in the tutorials section of this site. :D I could be more help, but these things have been covered here before. Happy hunting. :cool:
PHP is a language in and of itself, though many don't necessarily consider it a traditional language. They usually refer to it as a "web language" or something like that. ASP pages are typically coded in VBScript, though other languages are available. ASP.NET, however, is a language (based upon VB.NET if I'm not mistaken). As for CGI, most I've seen are either C/C++ or Perl, though you could probably use any language you want as long as it has the necessary constructs.
AJ
can you code CGI and ASP w/ PHP
No. I'd explain but aeallison has a point. You should be able to find most of this information (either on Google or other AO threads)Quote:
can you code CGI and ASP w/ PHP
AJ
CGI and ASP are more the platform than the language. You can do perl, vbscript, jscript, any other com enabled scripting language with asp 3.0. CGI is much the same in that you can basically create a cgi application with about any programming language (usually c/c++/Perl).
Neither CGI nor ASP specifies the language you must use. However ASP is much more picky about its friends.Quote:
Originally posted here by unhappy
[B]From what I undersand CGI & ASP aren't programming and/or scripting languages.
CGI is the common gateway interface. I think it's basically something which was developed with the CERN HTTP daemon in the early days of the worldwide web. It's now supported by Apache (a direct descendent of CERN) and most other servers.Quote:
Then what are they... "standards" .... if so ... standards of what.
Anything which can produce a standalone executable or be used as a script interpreter (on Unix). Provided you can manipulate standard input/output, and access environment variables.Quote:
What languages can you use to program CGI
That pretty much rules VB out, as it has no way to access standard input/output (in fact you can't make console apps with it at all as far as I know).
But nearly anything else.
In principle, any language which implements a given COM interface specified by microsoft. This requires the interpreter (or VM, it doesn't have to be interpreted) to be in a .DLL and work by certain standards.Quote:
and what languages can you use to program ASP???
The language also needs to be able to access particular COM interfaces, and it is much easier if it also can use IDispatch to send text-based commands to objects.
In practice, this means Microsoft VBScript or Microsoft JScript. In principle there are others but they are unreliable, and unsupported by Microsoft and component vendors (who give you the cold shoulder if you're not using VBScript).
Absolutely not. Microsoft invented ASP as a more performant replacement for CGI. CGI requires starting a new process, which is an expensive process, particularly under Windows NT.Quote:
Are CGI & ASP different versions of the same thing ???
No. PHP is its own language which integrates directly with web servers. You can use PHP with CGI (after a fashion), but it's not the normal way of doing it.Quote:
Is PHP a language or standard like CGI & ASP???
ASP and PHP do not talk to each other as far as I'm aware.
Slarty
Asp.net is not a language, like it's predecessor it is the platform that you can use with various .net languages. Most people choose C#.
""""Are CGI & ASP different versions of the same thing ???
Absolutely not. Microsoft invented ASP as a more performant replacement for CGI. CGI requires starting a new process, which is an expensive process, particularly under Windows NT.""""
what do you mean "performant"?
how does asp NOT require to start another process... does it run in some kind of web server sandbox... ?
are you saying that asp will replace cgi?
if they are not used for the same thing what is each good for?
which one is closer to being like a java applet?
what is open source community doing to combat ASP.NET if CGI is too old???
thanx guys so far great replies, clarifies a lot for me!!!!!!!!!!!
CGI is basically a way to run binaries as if they were a web script. ASP facilitates using multiple web scripting languages and provides them with a bunch of common classes that can be utilized for various tasks (database connectivity, for example).Quote:
Neither, Java applets are applications embedded in web pages.Quote:
which one is closer to being like a java applet?
PHP is one major contributor, and PEAR seeks to provide a standard library of classes to bring it up to par with ASP. There are also other alternatives -- Tomcat which provides JSP.Quote:
what is open source community doing to combat ASP.NET if CGI is too old???
CGI is not too old, it is simply an alternative to scripting languages. There are a lot of things still done with CGI.
I mean it performs better.Quote:
Originally posted here by unhappy
[B]""""Are CGI & ASP different versions of the same thing ???
Absolutely not. Microsoft invented ASP as a more performant replacement for CGI. CGI requires starting a new process, which is an expensive process, particularly under Windows NT.""""
what do you mean "performant"?
It runs inside an already running process, as part of a thread used by the web server (or in some versions, optionally in a pool of threads in another process)Quote:
how does asp NOT require to start another process... does it run in some kind of web server sandbox... ?
No, both are now obsolete. I'm saying Microsoft hoped it would replace CGI when they developed it (1996ish). Microsoft wanted a way to tie developers down to NT, which was at the time a woefully inadequate platform for a web server.Quote:
are you saying that asp will replace cgi?
No, they are both used for exactly the same thing.Quote:
if they are not used for the same thing what is each good for?
Neither of them is anything like a Java applet.Quote:
which one is closer to being like a java applet?
Several thingsQuote:
what is open source community doing to combat ASP.NET if CGI is too old???
- PHP runs inside the web server usually - therefore suffers none of the startup performance problems with CGI
- The various Java application servers like Tomcat - which have been around for a while before ASP.NET - and the components such as "Struts" - which ASP.NET is largely believed to have been based on.
- Mono can run ASP.NET itself (with Apache if necessary)
Slarty
what can i say slarty ... you are like that guy on CSI (CBS crime scene investigation show) who knows everything... i really really got it now
only one more thing
quote """PHP runs inside the web server usually - therefore suffers none of the startup performance problems with CGI""""
since php is one of the answers of OS community to ASP and such, and yet it's better then CGI approach. (in some ways of course) it poses an iteresting dilema... is PHP (language) able to handle and replace ASP and CGI standard....
it's kinda like a "one programming language against two "standards" "
where do you think that compiled code stands in this (regarding CGI) .... is it not irrationall to assume that in a networked environment we will try to distance the code from hardware as much as possible... therefore CGI as well becomes absolete
While you do not have to worry about the process startup that you get with cgi you do have to worry about actual script compilation and execution (unless you pre-compile things and then you still have to wait for the code to load).
Asp.net also has the capability of running straight script or using pre-compiled binaries in the form of "code behind". It works fairly well.
Php, asp, asp.net, all of these are different hammers for different carpenters and situations. Personally I prefer asp.net to all others.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king...
Obviously about PHP - people should be mindful, that while it's startup cost is low (i.e. it doesn't start a new process), it's not a particularly efficient language for general programming (AND it usually has to recompile the scripts on each hit).
Yes, Java or ASPNET are much more efficient, only compiling the page source once then keeping it in memory.
But in a lot of web apps it doesn't matter that much. Also be clear when trying to fix a poorly performing web app, exactly WHERE the slowness is coming from. Profile it, and fix the slow bits.
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Compiled CGI programs: Yes, these work fine, but there is still a startup cost associated with creating a new process each time.
Also CGI is quite a nightmare for newbie web app programmers, there are lots of easy mistakes to make. Persisting session state is probably the hardest thing, as you generally can't, given that the process exits as soon as it's finished one request.
Nevertheless, looking at web URLs, it seems quite a lot of people still use CGI, particular for things where the task in hand is complicated (Generating SSL certificates, etc)
Slarty
There is stuff out there such as the Zend PHP Accelerator that will compile PHP into native binary form, for use as CGI binaries.Quote:
Originally posted here by slarty
Obviously about PHP - people should be mindful, that while it's startup cost is low (i.e. it doesn't start a new process), it's not a particularly efficient language for general programming (AND it usually has to recompile the scripts on each hit).
Slarty, that's an incredibly vague statement. There are cases (quite a few in fact) where the above is not true of Java or ASP.NET. JSP for instance, is NOT compiled into VM code beforehand, although similar to ASP 3.0 you can (and are encouraged) to offload most of the work onto compiled library classes.Quote:
Yes, Java or ASPNET are much more efficient, only compiling the page source once then keeping it in memory.