JSP vs. ASP front end

Hi,

I'm in the process of creating a site somewhat similiar to URL but it's not going to be computer hardware related. My question is my back end is going to be an Oracle database, but what would you recommend to use in the front end, JSP or ASP? Why? Recommend another? Why?

Thanks!!

Jason

Use what you know. Any "discussions" of one over the other generally turn out to be pointless. If you are more comfortable with one over the other, then use that one. If you don't know either, start learning them both and see which one is easier. People will argue blah blah vs. blah blah, but you can pretty much do everything you need in each one.

---John Holmes...

One thing you have to take into account is scalability. If the site is to grow massively, then I would suggest JSP and Java. Saying that though it would probably cost more to host etc.

there is a pretty good possiblility that the site might grow to a huge scale so thank you i'll take that into accountability.

any of the main web application languages can handle 'massive' sites - JSP, ASP, PHP or Perl (however, I wouldn't recommend coldfusion for a massive site... ).

Just to clarify something, JSP/ASP/whatever isn't used for the 'front end' of your site - these are programming languages which execute on the server, and can modify or control various aspects of the final (X)HTML output.

What exactly is the difference between JSP and a Servlet? Does it make more sense to use ASP with IIS and SQL Server? Is JSP even supported in IIS?

JSP's primary reason for existance is to provide a Java-free front end to servlets, which handle all of the back-end processing for your website. JSP /can/ contain Java code; if you're creating a 'model 1' type website, this is basically what you're doing; if you're working from the MVC perspective (preferred for larger websites) then my initial explanation is the preferred method. Apache Group's Jakarta-Struts project is a great example of MVC web applications built in JSP/Servlets.

You can run JAVA ANYWHERE!!! Where have you been for the past 10 years, anyway???

However, I wouldn't run a Java on Windows/IIS, since it sorta misses the point ... if you're really wanting to run an IIS server, use MS' asp or asp.net. If you're running Java, use Solaris, FreeBSD, or a Linux distro for your server OS. Your HTTPD server and Java server are contingent on a lot of things; some popular combos are apache/tomcat, bea weblogic, ibm websphere, etc.

last question...

I'm lookin at rackspace as a host. They're probably going to sell me more than I need. Could anyone recommend me what I might be looking at to spend monthly? I dont expect alot of traffic the first few months and they have a month to month contract so that I can upgrade if needed after just a month.

Thanks!

I believe most web hosts will allow you to upgrade your package. After all they are going to get more money. But most offer deals if you apply for a longer period of time. If you go month to month then you could always cancel your service and go with another hosting company if your host gives you problems. You will probably also have to pay a higher activation fee for month to month service.

By the way, I have heard that PHP is just as good in most respects when compared to JSP/ASP and has many of the same features (that is to say as a hypertext preprocesor). I have done some work with JSP/Servlets and PHP and can't really tell the difference as far as functionality. They are both just ways to create on-the-fly web pages. I know PHP supports mySQL but I don't honestly know about oracle.

I have no experience with ASP but I would recomend Java just from a programmers perspective. I seriously doubt that with ASP you will learn something you can use anywhere except on that server machine (although I do not really know much about ASP). With java you will be learning how to write code that can also be run on regular non-server-machines. Java programs can be run as either applets/JApplets or as a standalone program, not to mention the fact that java is cross platform. The thing that really draws me to java is how it can be used on the client side. You talked about creating a front end (I will take this to mean the clients user interface). With java you have complete control over the user interface. As long as the client has a java plugin installed the front end will look exactly the same on any machine and with any browser (in theory anyway, though I have heard of some inconsistencies in how some operating systems display colors, yes even the "web safe pallet"). No more messing with multiple versions of one page using javascript just because MS and Netscape can't agree on what a standard is. There are some drawbacks though. Some web browsers do not come with a java plug in installed. So the user would have to download a plugin and install. The plug in that I downloaded for mozilla was 8.8megs, not a small size when you consider that alot of your trafic might be dial up.

PHP is an excellent choice for the application layer of almost any website. Its also the most popular web applications development language in the world right now