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ASP and ColdFusion both required license fees at the time I believe (asp the Windows server license and CF of course the CF license) CGI just would run any typ

ASP and ColdFusion both required license fees at the time I believe (asp the Windows server license and CF of course the CF license) CGI just would run any type of script. Originally that was typically Perl but PHP surpassed Perl for a variety of reasons. PHP could be run either through CGI or through mod_php in Apache. There was also a mod_perl I believe and a few others but php is what web hosts typically installed in the early 2000s.

im3w1l 7y ago
Why did php beat perl?
- horizone 7y ago
  Personally, I switched from Perl to PHP around 2002 (I could be wrong with the year) as I wanted to move from flat file dbs to MySQL. I wouldn't say that it beat Perl, it was just made web development more accessible. I still wrote in Perl after that, but for server side scripting (processing, cleanup etc).
- tjpnz 7y ago
  Easy to write and easy to deploy. But that was a double edged sword.
- Kye 7y ago
  The web. Making a typical language output HTML required a lot of hoop-jumping or inventing a web framework in a time before Django and Rails. PHP was its own web framework.
- klodolph 7y ago
  Someone with better knowledge might step in here. From https://perl.apache.org/about/history.html https://perl.apache.org/about/history.html > "PHP was also around already, and was an embarrassing witness to Perl's greatest weakness for server-side programming: that embedding Perl was a pain. Although the hooks were there for embedding Perl, they were both undocumented and buggy. My other take on it is that PHP is like TypeScript, in that the path to adopting PHP from HTML is simple enough—just rename your HTML files with a .php suffix and you can add dynamic elements—or not. Just like how you can rename your JavaScript code with a .ts suffix and add types—or not. Personally, I remember writing a few Perl CGI scripts. But I ended up using PHP for any quick-and-dirty dynamic stuff.
- wvenable 7y ago
  Perl was just as inscrutable then as it is now.

im3w1l 7y ago

Why did php beat perl?

horizone 7y ago
Personally, I switched from Perl to PHP around 2002 (I could be wrong with the year) as I wanted to move from flat file dbs to MySQL. I wouldn't say that it beat Perl, it was just made web development more accessible. I still wrote in Perl after that, but for server side scripting (processing, cleanup etc).
tjpnz 7y ago
Easy to write and easy to deploy. But that was a double edged sword.
Kye 7y ago
The web. Making a typical language output HTML required a lot of hoop-jumping or inventing a web framework in a time before Django and Rails. PHP was its own web framework.
klodolph 7y ago
Someone with better knowledge might step in here. From https://perl.apache.org/about/history.html https://perl.apache.org/about/history.html > "PHP was also around already, and was an embarrassing witness to Perl's greatest weakness for server-side programming: that embedding Perl was a pain. Although the hooks were there for embedding Perl, they were both undocumented and buggy. My other take on it is that PHP is like TypeScript, in that the path to adopting PHP from HTML is simple enough—just rename your HTML files with a .php suffix and you can add dynamic elements—or not. Just like how you can rename your JavaScript code with a .ts suffix and add types—or not. Personally, I remember writing a few Perl CGI scripts. But I ended up using PHP for any quick-and-dirty dynamic stuff.
wvenable 7y ago
Perl was just as inscrutable then as it is now.