C/C++ CGI has its place, but is too darn complicated, you will probably spend half your time just writting the data parsing routines, which ASP and PHP do for you, I know I have done it.

OK, the way I see it, it all depends on your taste, your budget, and where you want or where you CAN run your apps.
for example say you have a DSL, T1, T3 to your house and you are going to set up your own server, I will Use amazon prices, and I am not taking into account paying for the actual connection:

Windows 2000 Server (10 clients) : $939.99
Microsoft Access: $279.99 or
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard: $1,159.99
Microsoft Visual InterDev 6.0 Professional Edition with Plus Pack : $519.99
Having a "Unexpected Error" message mocking you from your IE 5.5 Window: Priceless!!!

Now if you get Red Hat:

Red Hat Linux Professional Server 7.0: 79.99
Having all the sofware you need to develop and host a web server on the same 3 disks of your $80 OS, PLUS tech support: Priceless!!!!

Now lets see it form a different perspective, say you dont host your web yourself, you pay someone else to have your page in their server, ok, they use windows, you can run ASP, say you find a better deal or you dont like how they treat you or whatever you want to move out of your web hosting provider, for the above reason, what OS is more likelly your Hosting Provider be using?? who would charge you more?? a guy running Linux or one running Windows??. Remember you have your pages in ASP VBScript, you move to the Red Hat guy . . . converting from ASP tp PHP or Perl or you name it??? will you do it yourself? will you pay someone to do it??? bet you will be wishing you started with at least a PHP/MySQL convination which is supported on both OSes.

Planning ahead is a good strategy, is the basis of reusable code.

Kwizatz:

You get tech support with the Windows/SQL products also...not that you''ll need it.

If you''re a student you get Academic pricing. If you have MSDN then you get all the software as apart of your subscription. If you know someone that has an account as the Microsoft Store then you can get all that for about $200 :-)

Obviously, if you''re a company, those prices don''t matter much because 1. you don''t pay retail, and 2. the software isn''t the main price. When you''re buying a few quad-proc machines with gigs of ram, etc...another couple grand isn''t much.
Oracle would be a better comparison with SQL server...although that''d throw the pricing comparison into MS''s favor (esp with Oracle''s Mhz-based pricing model).

There are plenty of Web hosting providers that use Windows. There are also plenty that use Unix. The main issue would be finding plenty that allow Scripting and DB access that aren''t designed for corperate customers.



Epolevne

I was responding to this:

quote:
PLUS tech support: Priceless!!!!

It implies that you don''t get tech support with the other option.

Epolevne

quote:PHP, MySQL, and Apache are a darn good combination.

Very true. If you are interested in an easy, and powerful solution for you database backed web-application, I would strongly recommend PHP/SQL combo. IMHO, this combination by far kicks the crap out of the MS ASP approach. If you are comfortable with C++ type syntax, go PHP. If you are the type who likes the (messy) VB style, go asp.

I didnt meant to imply that you dont get support, just that if you DO pay for Redhat (you can download the ISOS for free and burn them yourself without breaking the law) you get tech support, that is what Red Hat is about, support, they dont make money from the distro itself.

Anyway, you might have noticed I am from Latin America, here you get Retail USA prices without having USA Salaries so, for a Lone Wolf like myself the chooise is quite Obvious, all that developer and student licences are non existing here, Like I said is a matter of taste, budget, and planning ahead, add to that the resources you have available.

See ya guys