CGI is “common interface”. CGI applications can be written in any language that can be executed on Web servers, either complied or interpreted. These languages may include PERL. C/C++, shell Scripts, Visual Basic, FORTRAIN, etc. Which language is better in a particular environment depends upon many factors including systems and servers.



CGI first appeared on UNIX-based systems. The most popular Web servers are NCSA httpd server and CERN httpd server. PERL was first designed as an UNIX system script language. Its ease of the use and strong pattern-matching and string-manipulation properties have made it very popular as a CGI programming language. C and Shell Scripts (C Shell, Bourn Shell or Korn Sheli) are also very popular in UNIX-based servers.



With Window NT’s rapidly growing acceptance, more and more Window-based servers are entering our lives. The most popular servers are Website, Netscape Enterprise Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server. UNIX-born PERL, which was adapted for the Windows NT platform, is still one of the most popular CGI programming languages.



Visual Basic is also very popular in windows CGI programming. One reason is that Visual Basic has the largest number of users among all the programming languages in the world. Another reason is that Visual Basic is easy to learn and use. So Visual Basic will play an important role in the future in windows CGI programming.



C is also a very good programming language for CGI. It is suitable for any platform. Probably you may ask which language that you know best. If you only know Visual Basic and you do not want to learn the somewhat annoying C or PERL languages, which is fine. If you only like C, you still can do anything you want. But if you want to become a real CGI programmer, I still suggest you learn PERL. If you any programming experience, you will find PERL is pretty easy to learn. If you need one yearn to master the C language, i think one month is enough for PERL.



Now, we know C, PERL, Shell Script and Visual Basic are good stuff for CGI. Then how about Java, JavaScript VBscript or ActiveX Control technology? How do they work for CGI? Then answer should be that languages will probably work fairly well but since they are so new, the “Jury is still out” on most of them.



Actually, Java, ActiveX control, JavaScript and VBscript can be executed on the client directly, not like CGI in which the client’s request is first sent to the server, the server executes the program and then sends the output back to client. This means that they can do the same job as the other languages with CGI can do. This is why these languages are becoming more and more popular.



The recent publicity about Java may have given you idea that you should study Java or similar languages instead of CGI. This is not completely true. Java, active is pretty new techniques.



Apart from having a well designed website it is most important to have a well optimized site to rank well on search engines . To reduce on search engine optimization cost you may try to

View all Karthikeyan's articles

---

About the Author:
Karthikeyan is an experienced web designer and SEO specialist at leading Link building outsource company Outsource Seo Services

More Web Design articles