Case Study: Choose Your CGI
Darius is the project manager of a Web development team for a mid-size corporation. The team needs to choose a CGI technology for the company's new primary Web site. Darius must write the recommendation that upper management will review in deciding whether to approve funds.
In creating a short summary of the project, Darius asked his team members to help answer the following questions:
- how developers in the company know common CGI technologies?
- What operating systems are currently in use in the company? (by percentage, such as 50 percent Windows, 30 percent Linux, 20 percent Solaris)
- What operating systems are ideal for this project?
- What Web servers are ideal for this project?
Darius learned that the company's computer environment was almost completely Windows-based. Also, several members of the Web development team knew how to use VBScript and had experience using Active Server Pages (ASP). Although ASP is an older Microsoft technology (.NET is newer and more versatile), the Web development team recommended ASP as the best choice.
As Darius' team made their choice, they considered the importance of using client-side technologies such as JavaScript. However, they also considered that some browsers do not support JavaScript, and that some users may deactivate JavaScript in their browsers, which could cause Web pages to render differently and disappoint some site visitors. After some deliberation, Darius and his team decided to use server-side technology (specifically ASP) for all applications.