Best Development Tools

What's the best standard going forward?

[consultant]

I'm an 'old school' developer. Been developing websites for 8 years. My current standard toolset is primarily Perl and mySQL (and ocassionally some Javascript). (I prefer Dreamweaver for HTML/Javascript work.)

If I recall, the choice in development tools/technologies has usually been between ASP/Visual Basic/IIS (or Microsoft in other words) versus Perl/PHP/mySQL/APache (or more 'Open' software). With some of my upcoming projects being with larger, more high profile clients that use all Microsoft technologies throughout their organization, I'm wondering if it is worth considering getting up to speed on the latest Microsoft web development tools instead of continuing to use Perl/mySql/Apache tools.

Having been an IIS administrator a couple years back, I've always found the Microsoft technologies to be unreliable, overly complex, and just plain overkill for most web applications versus the simpler, more open and reliable products such as Apache, Perl, and mySQL. Has this all changed? Am I totally missing out on some great tools that are becoming more and more 'the standard' these days? Or has not much changed?

[SEO practioner]

Hi Consultant and welcome to webmaster world!

Personally, we almost exclusively work with JSP, servelts, Apache and Tomcat here, with some PHP.

I try to stay away from the Microsoft camp. You are right: IIS, .Net and all that is a bit too complicated for no reason.

What I like about the open-source idea is just that: it is much more open and I find there is a lot more of cooperation all together, but that is only my humble opinion.

SEO :-)

[grahamstewart]

"Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April of 1996. The August 2002 Netcraft Web Server Survey found that 63% of the web sites on the Internet are using Apache, thus making it more widely used than all other web servers combined"
- Source [httpd.apache.org...]

and the use of PHP is continuing to rise
- [php.net...]

As far as I am concerned they are very compelling reasons to stay with Apache, PHP and the open source crew.

[consultant]

Oh believe me I'm luvin Apache after those years with IIS just crashing and all the security holes. Granted IIS has come a long ways, Apache is still the standard (IMHO). The question really is development tools. It seems PHP and mySQL are very popular. I'm a Perl programmer at heart wondering if there are any other tools worth utilizting (Cold Fusion?) or if a lot of people have migrated to Microsoft due to improved reliability/functionality? It seems there are many people on these forums using some sort of ASP (Active Server Page) based solutions for various aspects of their websites. I love the flexibility of Perl, you can do most anything, but development can be a little tedious at times.

[grifter]

If you know Perl and ASP, PHP will be a snap. Tons of good examples on the web to boot.

[dotbiz]

I'm currently planning to build a set of websites based on perl and Mason (masonhq.com). The architecture would be like this:

MySQL <-> Perl Modules <-> Mason

MySQL - Database for all website data;
Perl Modules - DB interface, API, Business logic;
Mason - HTML templating, reusable page components.

I found such a structure quite flexible. If I change my database, I only need to slightly change the perl modules. Change site layout is easy by just mofifying Mason components.

My question is whether such architecture is available for other technologies, like Java/JSP. I'm a little concerned about the performance and future of Perl. Maybe a JAVA Application Server (e.g. jboss)/Servelet/JSP would be better, but is it overly complicated? Could anyone share your experience?

(I'm sort of against M$ and not feeling comfortable to use theire "non-open" platform, so no ASP for me.)