Web Site Technology – Consider Your Options
Not lengthy in the past, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail requesting my opinion on whether a site he becomes growing should be achieved using WordPress, LAMP, or ASP.NET. I’ve used all of those; however, I have constantly been so focused on the info and mastering them that I never clearly concept about the exceptional query of “What generation ought to be used for a given web page?”“. That is any such accurate question that I determined to put my mind on paper and provide a few schooling to others.
Some human beings do not have the abilities and potential actually to be able to select the most suitable generation. They realize one issue, and this is going to must be made to paintings in all cases. That’s now not always horrific, but it is high-quality to switch between technologies based totally on the website online. The essential element to understand in net web page improvement is that one era does not stay healthy.
WordPress
I even have several web websites presently strolling WordPress. I firstly notion of WordPress as only a running a blog platform. While that is sincerely its principal use and what it’s far optimized for, you may use it to create an extra “conventional” looking web website. It could be very configurable, and heaps of custom plug-ins available could help you add RSS feeds, search engine optimization tags, vote casting, and many others. Since WordPress is developed with PHP and MySQL, it’s also possible to create your personal plugins and customize your website template. Oh, and that is the other extraordinarily top-notch aspect about WordPress — the templates! There are literally thousands of unfastened WordPress templates to be had for download. If you can’t discover one that suits your website’s subject matter, then you aren’t looking difficult enough.
Another first-class component approximately WordPress is that you can effortlessly find internet website hosting carriers that help WordPress. In most cases, you could click an install link and have WordPress properly installed on your website in some seconds. Then you go to the WordPress admin console and configure your site. It is all very smooth. You can upload more than one template and, without problems, transfer among them. It is likewise easy to make minor changes to the templates (like converting tag strains, colorations, etc.).
WordPress’s other advantage is that it’s far a blogging platform and the search engines love blogs. You can configure your WordPress installation to robotically ping one or greater running blog offerings on every occasion you add a brand new put up or page. That way, they realize your website online has been modified, and they must come index your web page again. If you want your site to be located, then use WordPress because the underlying engine is a good alternative.
LAMP
In case you do not know, LAMP stands for Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, a widespread and powerful set of technology additives used for building internet websites (and did I mention completely Open Source and loose!). If you need whole control over your internet site, then LAMP is a good choice. There are plenty of examples, loose scripts, and so forth. To be had at the net site to help you get started. There also are masses of unfastened editors and gear to help you alongside. The disadvantage of the LAMP is that it’s far difficult to create your personal improvement “surroundings.” Since most folks run a few Windows apps as our desktop operating system, we would need to use something like VMWare or Virtual PC to create a digital machine jogging Linux. The next undertaking is getting all of the components properly set up. While the installers for the LAMP additives have advanced, they still do not examine the ease of installing a Windows-based totally utility. The next assignment with the LAMP is debugging. It might be fine if all of us wrote the best code. However, the reality is you want the potential to debug. There are PHP debuggers available. An excellent one goes to cost you a little money, though.
One of the exceptional matters of approximately LAMP is that there are TONS of web hosting vendors accessible with a purpose to pick from. The cause is quite easy — LAMP is a completely open supply, so there’s very little value for the hosting corporation to endure. That means a greater margin for them!
ASP.NET
Microsoft’s contribution to the net website online improvement is ASP.NET. You can use any .NET language (C#, VB.NET, Python.NET, etc.) to expand an ASP.NET primarily based web page. In my opinion, the first-rate aspect approximately ASP.NET is the fact you can use Microsoft Visual Studio for your improvement tool. Visual Studio is the quality device out there. Yes, it fees cash. However, you sincerely get what you pay for. The different pleasant factor approximately ASP.NET is that you can easily expand on your Windows-based computing device or pc.
It is more difficult to find a proper ASP.NET hosting company. Believe me; I’ve looked! And I’ve used numerous exclusive ones. The ASP.NET vendors lag in the back of the LAMP carriers in phrases of what they offer. You additionally need to be cautious and definitely understand the issuer manner by using things like “host unlimited # of domains.” In many cases, they mean you could have an unlimited # of domains point to your single internet website. That likely isn’t always what you need.
I cited using Visual Studio before. That tool is extraordinary and makes improvement SOOOO tons simpler. I did pretty a chunk of improvement in using the LAMP and got some websites up and strolling. I used Eclipse with a PHP plug-in, and it labored quite suitable. I didn’t have Apache walking or Linux, so I couldn’t definitely debug; however, I still controlled. When it got here time to create a greater advanced internet web page; however, I quickly decided to replace it over to ASP.NET and use Visual Studio. Debugging became a snap, and the coding turned into making it a lot less difficult to Intellisense and Visual Studio’s potential to “import” web services and make them less complicated for me to call from my code.
Making the Right Choice
Each of the technology alternatives has execs and cons. If you need to get a site up speedy and display primary information (textual content, pictures, video), then WordPress is a great option. However, if you want a greater advanced web website, do not want to spend a great deal of money on improvement tools, then LAMP is the quality preference. Finally, if you already have Visual Studio or know .NET programming, ASP.NET is a great option. If you are surely fortunate and may know all 3, you may use the proper device for the task irrespective of what.
Brad Salmon has over 18 years of revel in designing and developing generation solutions. He keeps to have a passion for the era and spends his spare time studying new technologies and practicing them to feature actual price. His Blog [http://www.SalmonSites.Com] carries treasured data and instructions learned from his net web page improvement efforts.
