can someone clarify this for me (cgi/asp..etc..)

[unhappy]

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

[aeallison]

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. I could be more help, but these things have been covered here before. Happy hunting.

[avdven]

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

[unhappy]

can you code CGI and ASP w/ PHP

[avdven]

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)

AJ

[Juridian]

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).

[slarty]

Originally posted here by unhappy
[B]From what I undersand CGI & ASP aren't programming and/or scripting languages.

Neither CGI nor ASP specifies the language you must use. However ASP is much more picky about its friends.

Then what are they... "standards" .... if so ... standards of what.

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.

What languages can you use to program CGI

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.

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.

and what languages can you use to program ASP???

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.

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).

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.

Is PHP a language or standard like CGI & ASP???

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.

ASP and PHP do not talk to each other as far as I'm aware.

Slarty

[Juridian]

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#.

[unhappy]

""""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!!!!!!!!!!!

[chsh]

Originally posted here by unhappy
if they are not used for the same thing what is each good for?

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).

which one is closer to being like a java applet?

Neither, Java applets are applications embedded in web pages.

what is open source community doing to combat ASP.NET if CGI is too old???

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.
CGI is not too old, it is simply an alternative to scripting languages. There are a lot of things still done with CGI.