RE: Beginning web development

I think you're probably right, David, especially in the non-AS/400 market.
But you know what the language of choice is there - Perl.  Perl is a
reasonable substitute for Java as far as flexibility in string manipulation
and the like.

Even so, that doesn't make it correct.  The flexibility of a JSP is far
greater than that of a CGI application, unless you've done a whole lot of
infrastructure work.  I'm not saying you can't write an application in CGI;
I'm saying it's a little harder and a little less flexible.

My demonstrations programs all use the exact same RPG program.  But through
servlets and JavaServer Pages I can show one version that looks exactly like
a green screen, one version that is a proportional font equivalent, with
little fancy formatting, but very fast, and a third is a very pretty version
that looks as if it were designed from the ground up to be web based.  All
without changing a single line of application code.  This can be done in
CGI, but it's a whole lot of work.

Anyway, the point has been made.  You can certainly write data presentation
applications in CGI.  CGI can be used for applications, as well.  In my
opinion, it's easier to use servlets and JSP to design a flexible interface.

As Dan points out, some CGI vendors are moving to JSP.  I don't know of a
single JSP vendor who is moving to CGI.

Joe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Gibbs
>
> At 08:58 AM 9/24/2001, you wrote:
> >CGI has its uses, but they're not for interactive applications.
>
> Joe:
>
> I think you'll find a large number of on-line vendors would disagree with
> that blanket statement.
>
> Many, many, many, systems are written with CGI.  Not necessarily RPG (darn
> few, unfortunately), but still with CGI.
>
> Although I don't have hard facts to back it up, I belive that the majority
> of web apps are written in languages other than Java & JSP.