Which server-side programming should i choose.

[Alex de Kruijff]

On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 01:19:29PM -0700, sanketh sangam wrote:
> I have a Apache webserver on FreeBSD machine. I think
> mySQL is also installed(I do not know how to check if
> mySQl is installed on that sytem).
> I am planning to put a user authentication to access
> my webpages in the server. For that i need to write
> server-side programming. Since there are any
> server-side softwares(PHP, ASP, JSP, Perl........) ,I
> am confused as to which one would be better for Apache
> and freeBSD.
> Instead of going for those server-side programming,
> should I go for HTTP authentication method. I am
> confused. Any kind of help would be appreciated.
> 
First of all HTTP authentication doesn't rule out server
side programming. Your first choice is if you want to use
server-side-pages or CGI programming. The server-side pages
you can use are PHP or JSP (ASP is posible but not the 
natural choice for apache). If you choice for CGI then 
the more tradional programman languages come to order. 
Personly, i like the server side varient better. If this,
is also the road for you then you are left with the choice
betwain PHP en JSP, or may be a combination. I feel that
JSP is better for the large design and PHP for the 
smaller pages. PHP is a bit easer to setup but JSP is more
efficent and more power for the larger design.

HTTP authentication is something you use to let you users
login. Both JSP and PHP can do this. You have to be worned
that there are two forms. The first is the easies to setup
but it send the password as _plain text_ for *everybody* to
read. There's an advances version that you can use in 
combination with SSL to make it more secure, but i forgot 
the name.

Alex