A brief outline of some of the server side technologies we work with

CGI - Perl, C

The Common Gateway Interface is rarely used on new web systems. However, we are prepared to modify or expand existing Perl and C scripts written for CGI based websites.

PHP

We find that PHP is often the most appropriate server side language for websites. The speed and ease of development means that our teams can generate complicated systems without having to navigate some of the barriers generated by other systems. PHP's popularity means that it is developed for most Internet server, most popular is it's Linux Apache implementation, but it can also be run on Windows IIS or Apache as well as a host of other servers. Using Smarty templating

Microsoft Server Side Technologies

Microsoft provide complete systems for generating web solutions. Their .NET platform allows our developers to use traditional VBScript, JScript or any other language .NET supports. Developing in a Microsoft environment means you must use an IIS server limiting you to Windows based hosting and limits portability.

JSP - JavaBeans, Servlets

Java Server Pages are a very powerful, they have the security and structure of Java. Systems developed in JSP are scalable and as the resource requirement grows for a site it's easy to increase the computing power running it. JSP development time is usually a more time consuming process than using ASP or PHP. However, the results are more 'complete' and the OOP inheirant in Java means code is more reusable and understandable.

Ruby on Rails

Ruby is a relativlely new languages. It is known for it's easy of use and design philosphy that takes a lot of repetitive work away from the programmer. Developing with Ruby is one of the fastest and simplest ways to create dynamic web content with the minimum fuss and computing red tape. It is, however, young and needs time to develop and stabilise as a language.