what is the best scripting language?

[Slade]

Which is your favourite? I need help because I wanna know what I should be making my site in.:cheesy:

Thanks guys,

Slade

[Drew]

asp.net smokes the hell out of those other programming langauges :)

[cscgal]

Javascript isn't really a scripting language. It's just a few extra bells and whistles you can add to standard HTML code - it's clientside unlike the other serverside options.

[Slade]

yeah I know, but I thought I'd add it in anyway :D

Slade

[Slade]

I know alot of people like cgi and php but I'm just curious as to what the advantages are. Can anyone help me out on this?

[liliafan]

Well I am a perl programmer primarily, but I also really like ksh, both of which are pretty good with cgi

[kc0arf]

Hi,

I enjoy using bash and expect. Expect is really useful for scripting ftp or scp sessions, where you need to transmit passwords and/or other interactive stuff at a command line.

Christian

[i686-linux]

I agree. Bash (and others) shell scripts are awesome. Very low overhead, and very powerful for "quick-and-dirty" type tools, to more complex cgi scripts for a webserver. And just think, the only interpreter you need is your shell! :) Yes, shell scripts can be limited at times when compared to others, but still, they get a job done that might otherwise require too much work in a different language.

[Jon Pierce]

Javascript isn't really a scripting language. It's just a few extra bells and whistles you can add to standard HTML code - it's clientside unlike the other serverside options.

Javascript _is_ a scripting language. The fact that it's client-side instead of server-side does not make it less of one.

ASP.NET isn't even a language it's a platform which supports multiple languages - one of which, C#, isn't a scripting language but the other of which, VB.NET, has most of the characteristics of one.

[big_k105]

i would recommend php as i personally find it the best solution for creating web pages :) cgi is pretty good using perl but perl is stronger as a system scripting language instead of a web language php is probably your best choice for web programming :)

[m-soft]

I voted for PHP.
Why ? Because I like it :p

[rinoa04]

I think that php is the best to be used for web development. Nowadays, it is widely used and the sources for web development using php is easy to get.

[pritaeas]

Primarily, it depends on what you need to program. Various languages apply better to a specific job. So, what are you creating?

[M_K_Higa]

I suppose it really depends on your desire. If you are on a Windows/IIS platform, you can stick to C# and/or VB.Net in the ASP.Net environment. Lots of foks use this and it seems to be popular in the corporate world - especially in intranet scenrios.

Linux/UNIX Apache platform has a whole lot of options. CGI php, pearl, c, c++ etc. Pick you favorit language and knock yourself out. Here's the good part if you are going down the Linux/Apache platform - it's free.

Another "scripting" language you may consider is coldfusion. It streamlines db connectivity. Drawback is that you need to install Coldfusion on top of the web server, and you also have to have the knowlege of configuring it.

The other scripting languages typically work out of the box; given that you are not talking about stuff like Widnows + PHP or some other odd combination. (These combinations require you to install the appropriate script engine; you need to know that.)

Here's something that is not so common... I've used javascript in a lot of my classic asp pages. Since I'm not a VB person, I swithched my default language from VBScript to javascript. So in this case, javascript becomes a server side scripting language as well.

It use to be that VB was the language of choice because it was very popular, therefore VBScript would have been attractive, but I don't think that argument holds water any more. As you can see from forums like this, there are many languages and each one has its community base.

So if you are choosing a language based on popularity - thus trying gaining a lot of potential support via community based forums, I'd look into the language you are most farmilar with and see if it has a large community base. I personally use C# because of my job requirement and fortunately it has a very large community forum. (There are lots of folks are out there who are willing to help out with C# code, so I'm lucky in this aspect.)

That's my $0.02.