apache::asp

I'm a PHP programmer, but ASP would be useful to me at work, so...

What am I not understanding about Apache::ASP (http://www.apache-asp.org/)? From the brief time I had to look over it today, it looks like it interprets ASP scripts -- does anybody know if that's so or not? It also looks like it's just Perl surrounded in ASP-style tags. But if it does do ASP, then why doesn't DH use it so we can use ASP?

Thanks. :-)

While I've never actually used ASP, it's my understanding that ASP pages (redundant) can be written in a few different languages. ASP isn't a language in itself. People tend to use the names ASP and VBScript interchangably, but ASP can also be written in JavaScript (or MS's version of it) or Perl. Apache::ASP can only interpret Perl.

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While I've never actually used ASP, it's my understanding that ASP pages (redundant) can be written in a few different languages. ASP isn't a language in itself. People tend to use the names ASP and VBScript interchangably, but ASP can also be written in JavaScript (or MS's version of it) or Perl. Apache::ASP can only interpret Perl.

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Absolutely true. ASP is just a framework for a scripting language, although it most commonly (and natively) uses VBScript. It basically extends VBScript to include server functions. I'd recommend using PHP, which has very similar syntax and is far more powerful.

Thanks for the replies.

I do use PHP -- it's what I do for a living, actually. :-) There's just existing code in our company that's more or less MS-specific that was done in ASP, and reinventing the wheel is not my cup of tea. I didn't know that (or anything, really) about ASP -- I've never had access to a Windows server in all my years of coding to learn anything about it, and PHP or Perl have always done everything I wanted them to.

There's not any (free) way at all to run VBScript-based ASP on Apache, is there? (Edited to add: I don't mean on DH, but on a Unix-based, on-site server.)

Thanks again!

Edited by everinjoy on 05/06/05 05:46 PM (server time).

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There's not any (free) way at all to run VBScript-based ASP on Apache, is there?

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The only reasonably reliable solution I am aware of is the Sun Java ASP emulator, formerly called Sun ONE (and before that, Chilisoft). In theory, it should be good enough to replace an IIS system, but it costs about $500.

The last I've herd is ASP on any Unix* based system is unstable and *not* recommended for production systems.

If you want ASP, goto a Windows webhost. It doesn't work on Unix very nicely. You can thank M$ for that one as they've intentionally built it to be Windows only (including intentionly *not* making it work well on Unix systems).

*Unix based systems include Mac. Since MacOSX is a BSD based system I include it in the Unix genre.

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The last I've herd is ASP on any Unix* based system is unstable and *not* recommended for production systems.

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Actually, I believe that Sun Java ASP is probably fine for production systems. Everything that ASP 3.0 has to offer is replicated, and the ASP has even been extended to handle a greaty variety of databases, Java, and XML-related stuff. See this datasheet for more information.

But if you're doing Sun, why not just stick with JSP? /shrug

I'm not using a webhost, I'm using an on-site server (OS X, at that). So I can't really up and change. :-) And as for JSP, the problem is that the code is *already written,* as I said above. Thanks though.

Thanks -- that's really useful information. I'll look into it! :-)