Summary

Server Side Scripting General Considerations

• Availability of relevant software
• Cost effectiveness of software
• Capabilities
• Ease of use
• Familiarity
• Debugging Tools

JSP

• Model A: Place Java code in the JSP page. Pro: easy. Con: messy.
• Model B: Use JavaBeans. Pro: cleaner code, reusable code. Con: Some code still in JSP.
• Model C: Direct submissions to a single controller servlet. This uses the MVC (model-view-controller) design pattern. Pro: clean, secure, scalable, maintainable. Con: more difficult to implement.
• General con: must use Java.
• General con: does not force a separation of content and presentation, perhaps forcing designers and developers to work together
• General con: tags not XHTML compatible

Perl (general purpose scripting language)

• Pro: text processing
• Pro: report generation
• Pro: scripting
• Pro: rapid prototyping
• Con: ugly syntax
• Con: weakly typed
• Con: many ways to do something (difficult to learn)

PHP (web page scripting language)

• Pro: fast
• Pro: secure
• Pro: supported on most platforms
• Pro: open source
• Pro: native with Apache
• Con: PHP 4 and earlier models did not support exceptions, error handling or OOP well.
• Con: weakly typed

XML

• Pro: customizable
• Pro: powerful and simple hypertext linking abilities
• Pro: better browser presentation and performance
• Pro: compresses well
• Con: verbose
• Con: platform neutral
• Con: supporting technology (e.g. XSL) still under development