Scripting languages spark new programming era

AJAXleds the pack

Perhaps the leader of the scripting language juggernaut is JavaScript, popular for enabling rich client activities in browsers. It has become a linchpin of the popular AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technique for building rich Internet applications. JavaScript may even be considered part of popular culture, having been mentioned during a "Saturday Night Live" skit several years ago.

JavaScript author Brendan Eich, CTO at Mozilla, recalled the origin of JavaScript in the 1995 timeframe. "The idea was to make something that Web designers, people who may or may not have much programming training, could use to add a little bit of animation or a little bit of smarts to their Web forms and their Web pages," Eich says.

JavaScript has been cited as being a bit difficult to use by some. Eich says there have been conflicts between the Internet Explorer document object model and use of JavaScript, but the emergence of JavaScript libraries is helping resolve the difficulties that disconnect has created, Eich says.

Work is proceeding on JavaScript 2 and the accompanying ECMAscript 4 standard, Eich says. "[With the upgrade], we're trying to address programming in the large, because no one thought JavaScript would be used at the wide scale it is," Eich says.

PHP dominates the server side

PHP, meanwhile, has established itself as a dominant server-side language in the scripting realm, powering applications such as the Sugar CRM platform. The language makes no pretenses about being for general-purpose use, Gutmans says. "The reason why we're so popular is because we focus only on Web. We try and do the best thing for the Web," he says.

PHP enables embedding of code within HTML pages, making it the first language to do that, Gutmans says. Presentation logic can be embedded within the actual context of the Web page, he adds. PHP also supports Web services, database access, and image manipulation. "You've got about 40,000 functions that are all Web-oriented," Gutmans says.

Like JavaScript, PHP also offers more simplicity than older languages. "It's very easy to pick up and then it will also scale with your needs," Gutmans explains. "I often call it the Visual Basic of the Web."

Java is PHP's biggest rival, Gutmans says. But PHP offers an edge in time to completion and expense, he says. "Java [has] very long development cycles [and requires] very expensive engineers." Also, Java applications typically require four to 10 times the code of a PHP application, he added.

Work is proceeding on the planned PHP 5.3 upgrade to the platform, featuring support for namespaces to enable better code organization and reuse. An internationalization extension, and performance and memory improvements are eyed as well. The upgrade is expected by the end of the year, Gutmans says.