If your site doesn't have in-house programmers writing custom applications, and if you're relying solely on simple CGI scripts, you're behind the curve. The state of the art in Web site applications has risen considerably in the medium' s short life, said Rakesh Agrawal , a technology consultant for Open Page. Today the leading edge consists of tools that let end-users or content staffs manipulate databases in real time. Agrawal's presentation is available here . The tools are custom-developed using software variously called application frameworks, database servers, application servers or just plain middleware.
Application frameworks offer a number of technical advantages.
Normally tightly integrated with the Web server, they're much faster than CGI and don't exact the performance penalties of constantly restarting the Perl interpreter every time someone executes a script. Then there's price. Not that paying more gets you more, according to David Sklar, chief technology officer for Student.net Publishing. Smaller organizations and those with a limited budget would gain the most, at least in the short term, from using open-source tools. Commercial support contracts are available for some open-source tools, such as Red Hat's distribution of the Linux operating system, but a thriving and knowledgeable user community is always available to help with problems.