shopping cart: which direction?

So I want to put be able to put a shopping cart up on some websites. I can program in Java and javascript and html (plus a bit of Perl) but haven't done any PHP or ASP or Coldfusion or these kinds of things. Ideally I'd like to use someone else's code and customise it. Any recommendations about whether I can do this with Java or javascript? I see one project for an encrypted javascript system at URL which looks interesting, but almost everything else seems to use PHP/ASP or whatever. Should I spend the time learning one of these and if so which one?

Well are you a UNIX / Windows type of guy? If Windows, I would suggest ASP. You can check out www.metalinks.com for some ASP coded shopping carts. Also look at www.hotscripts.com & www.scriptsearch.com for both PHP & ASP shopping carts.

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Nov 6, 2003

It is my understanding that a Javascript solution will not operate properly if the potential shopper has Javascript turned off. There is, according to what I have read recently, a portion of Internet users who operate in just such a fashion (that is, with Javascript turned off).

Ambassador
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Thanks guys. I guess I need to use both Windows and Unix (Linux anyway) as a lot of the servers where I'd want to put stuff would be Linux. Still I think you can use ASP on Linux too...? Hadn't thought about turning off javascript: thing about that is that these people must get a pretty patchy internet experience as ubiquitous things like graphical roll-overs wouldn't work either (or any dhtml). Wonder how wide-spread this is.

You can use some ASP (ChiliASP) on Linux, but it is not as functional as ASP on Windows. If you are going to use Linux - consider using PHP - possibly www.oscommerce.com