Best Programming Language

[Guard Dog]

What do you think is the best programming language for your website based upon ease of use, support, and ability?

I have created websites in a number of different ways over the years. There have been a lot of differences in how those sites have performed and many different reasons for trying different technologies.

Here are what I have tried so far (chronologically):


My first site, progressive-watch.com, was built on the Mambo CMS (written in PHP/MySQL). That site was an experience because I had absolutely no skills with php at all. Plus, Mambo has it's own way of doing things. In order to do what I wanted (which was list progressive jackpots after scraping the jackpot values) - I had to write my own module. It was very painful

My second revision to this site was in php/MySQL. I lost a TON of SERPS because I didn't know that I should redirect old links. I went from a PR5 to a PR1 upon the next Google update. It wasn't a pleasant experience because I lost a ton of SERP power.

I have written based upon Drupal, but wasn't very happy with the outcome - so I quickly scrapped that model. I heard from many that Drupal was the best platform to build upon. I had a difficult time understanding their 'node' concept and never truly found a way to integrate the system.

More recently all my sites have been using PHP and AJAX (Mootools, Prototype mainly). I am also a good VB.Net programmer (so I think) and have built manufacturing-quality portals in this language. I have not, however, done this with my online marketing. Why? Well, I haven't wanted to pay for a Windows Host yet

I know everyone has their different, unique approach and I would love to hear what you have done so far.


For me... The best programming language (thus far) has been PHP. How about you?

 

[Engineer]

PHP for me. Actually I have never tried another language; I went with PHP/MySQL from the beginning. Before I got started, I did some research on ASP and PHP, and I thought that PHP looked like the better of the options. (I don't remember why at this point, though.)

 

[SEOPants]

I love php and mysql.

The fantastic thing is that there are so many FREE and QUALITY applications out there to enhance your website, and the experience your users will have on the website is enhanced with it. Most of these programs are also generally very easy to change and modify it for your own usage!

Found that it also works a treat when you're creating SEO Websites as well! Quite versatile really.

 

[bonustreak]

Love the pants

 

[LionSlots]

I love php and mysql.

You pants, look like my PJ's... except x 100 brighter.

 

[slickrick]

You pants, look like my PJ's... except x 100 brighter.

His pants look very camp!

Php MySQL man here myself.

 

[Guard Dog]

Welcome to AGD Rick

It's looking like php is the way most go at this point. SEOPants had a good point in that there are TONS of great apps for php and many code snippets too. You can do about anything you want with it and not have to code yourself

 

[Vladi]

Languages, schmanguages They are all different ways of accomplishing the same thing. I've written stuff in C, Java, javascript, VB, SQL, PHP, plus a bunch of other acronyms most people wouldn't have heard of and its all much of a muchness once you learn how to construct a program (with the caveat that a few php scripts on a website are not a reflection of the complexity of most programming).

Most of our web dev stuff these days is done in PHP because its free, open, and there is a stack of resource material to research (copy from). One thing I have definitely learned is all other things being equal, go for the free, open source options because they inevitably build the best communities of support around them, and the TCO is always less in the long run.

I have written based upon Drupal, but wasn't very happy with the outcome - so I quickly scrapped that model. I heard from many that Drupal was the best platform to build upon. I had a difficult time understanding their 'node' concept and never truly found a way to integrate the system.

I'm taking a stab here and guessing that you aren't a programmer by trade? Drupal is far and away the best CMS I've worked with, but it would be horrendous to come to grips with if you are not a seasoned programmer. It takes care of so many little things that save you from rolling-your-own when creating a site, but its modular-based architecture means that its very basic "out of the box" and you need to download and install a bunch of other modules to get features other systems provide as standard. I even considered writing a blog or case study about constructing an affiliate site using drupal a while back but shelved it due to lack of time and not wanting to give away too many secrets

If you're paying for someone else to build a site, then drupal is worth considering, but your average "web developer" is unlikely to do a good job in a reasonable time frame. For beginners / non-programmers / web developers, you should definitely steer clear and check out something a little more simple out of the box like wordpress or joomla.

 

[Guard Dog]

I am a programmer by trade I just didn't have the time to figure out all the idiosyncrasies of their modular design (Drupal). I've heard from others that I should definitely give it a try, but have long since programmed my own sites from scratch and created my own 'mini CMS'.

It works for me for now and I don't have to spend a ton of time learning how and where their hooks are.

 

[Vladi]

Ah in that case then I definitely recommend taking a look, but yes only if you have a lot of spare time/money on your hands!

 

[casinobonusguy]

Once you learn drupal i think you would be stuck to it.I work with drupal ,php,mysql ,html daily.If you asked me 10 years ago i probably would have said something else lol

 

[Guard Dog]

aw, man... now I am getting geeked about Drupal again I have a feeling I am going to be spending a lot of time learning again.

 

[Vladi]

We just put in a module that allows us to replace any piece of text (matched by regular expressions) anywhere in any article with whatever we want. So we've set it up to replace casino names, relevant keywords, industry bodies (iMEGA, PPA etc), and various other stuff with links automatically. So now we never have to manually link to anything we specify with this module. All up it took about one hour and most of that was spent tweaking the regex's to match accurately, and also not match terms already inside a link. Very nice.

 

[Guard Dog]

We just put in a module that allows us to replace any piece of text (matched by regular expressions) anywhere in any article with whatever we want. So we've set it up to replace casino names, relevant keywords, industry bodies (iMEGA, PPA etc), and various other stuff with links automatically. So now we never have to manually link to anything we specify with this module. All up it took about one hour and most of that was spent tweaking the regex's to match accurately, and also not match terms already inside a link. Very nice.

Awesome, Vladi! Sounds like a winner. I can't believe it took so little time to accomplish. I am NOT good at regex, though, so I know it would have taken me longer than that.

 

[casinobonusguy]

I think worst programming language is CAP BULLSHIT 3.0

 

[Goldfinger]

I think worst programming language is CAP BULLSHIT 3.0

Are you high on limoncello again ;D

Php/mysql here. Can do anything I want. People who want OOP and model, view, controller architecture should probably do Java or Ruby but VB.net has MVC as well as far as I know (but as Andy said it requires a windows server ).

 

[casinobonusguy]

No I need some other drink today lol