First server side scripting language?

[fischermx]

Does anybody knows which was the first server side scripting language? :)

Just curious.

[nonanet]

I'd say Perl was the first language which was widely used as server side scripting language (although it was not specifically designed for that purpose).

Perhaps the first CGI applications were even written using shell script - but that's more of a guess.

[bcolflesh]

[history.perl.org...]

[fischermx]

Ok, guys, thanks.

The story is this : here in the office we were arguing if server side scripting was born the same day html was.

I said that first web servers just served html alone, without having any script capabilities. The other guys said, server side scripting was available since day one.

What do you think? I recall I heard about PHP and ASP years after the web was born.

[jollymcfats]

Before CGI was ISINDEX, which as far as I know was present from the most early implementations of HTML. Early ISINDEX scripts were definitely shell scripts, implementing silly things like gateways to the finger service.

A search for both ISINDEX and cern is a good filter for early dynamic content history...