Web Site Technology – Consider Your Options
Not long ago, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail soliciting my opinion on whether or not a website he was developing should be performed using WordPress, LAMP, or ASP.NET. I’ve used all of these but have continually been so centered on the information and gaining knowledge of them that I in no way truly have a notion about the excellent question of “What era needs to be used for a given website?”. That is such a correct query that I decided to place my mind on paper and help offer a few training to others.
Some people don’t have the ability and capability to pick the most suitable technology virtually. They recognize one component, which must be made to paintings in all cases. That’s not necessarily terrible, but it is satisfactory to transfer between a technology-based totally on the type of site. The crucial component to recognize in online website development is that one technology does not suit all.
I have numerous internet sites currently running WordPress. My first notion of WordPress was just running a blog platform. While that is sincerely its principal use and miles optimized for, you could certainly use it to create an extra “traditional” searching internet website. It may be very configurable, and tons of custom plugins can let you add RSS feeds, SEO tags, balloting, etc. Since WordPress is developed with PHP and MySQL, creating your plugins and customizing your website template is possible. Oh, and that’s the different, surprisingly tremendous component of WordPress — the templates! There are thousands of unfastened WordPress templates available for download. If you cannot locate one that fits the theme of your website, then you are not searching hard enough.
Another fine factor about WordPress is that you may, without problems, discover internet website hosting vendors that aid WordPress. In most instances, you could click on an installation hyperlink and have WordPress properly set up on your website online in seconds. Then, you go to the WordPress admin console and configure your website online. It is all effortless. You can add a couple of templates and, without problems, transfer between them. It is also clean to make minor template changes (like converting tag strains, colorings, etc.).
The different advantages of WordPress are that it’s miles a blogging platform, and the serps love blogs. You can configure your WordPress installation to robotically ping one or more blogging offerings whenever you add a new put-up or page. In that manner, they recognize that your website has been modified and that they must index your site again. If you want your site observed, use WordPress because the underlying engine is a great option.
LAMP
If you don’t know, LAMP stands for Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, a not unusual and effective set of technology additives used for building net sites (and did I point out Open Source and loose!). If you want complete control over your net website, then LAMP is a great choice. There are plenty of examples, flexible scripts, and so forth. To be had at the net website that will help you get started. There also are masses of unfastened editors and equipment to help you alongside. The disadvantage of LAMP is that it’s miles hard so that you can create your personal improvement “surroundings.” Since most folks run a few Windows as our laptop working machine, we would want to use something like VMWare or Virtual PC to create a digital device strolling Linux. The subsequent task is getting all the components nicely established. While the installers for the LAMP components have virtually progressed, they nonetheless do not examine the ease of installing a Windows-based utility. The subsequent mission with LAMP is debugging. It would be satisfactory if all of us wrote the best code. However, the fact is you need the ability to debug. There are PHP debuggers to be had. A proper one goes to value you a little cash, though.
One of the excellent things about LAMP is that there are TONS of internet hosting vendors accessible to choose from. The motive is pretty simple — LAMP is completely open-source, so there’s a minimal price for the website hosting company to bear. That manner greater margin for them!
ASP.NET
Microsoft’s contribution to web page improvement is ASP.NET. You can use any .NET language (C#, VB.NET, Python.NET, etc.) to develop an ASP.NET-based totally web page. The best thing about ASP.NET is the fact that you can use Microsoft Visual Studio for your development device. Visual Studio is the first-rate tool accessible. Yes, it costs, but you are what you pay for. The different high-quality thing about ASP.NET is that you can, without problems, expand to your Windows-based totally laptop or PC.
It is harder to find a proper ASP.NET web hosting issuer. Believe me, and I’ve regarded it! And I’ve used several one-of-a-kind ones. The ASP.NET providers lag behind the LAMP carriers in terms of what they offer. You must also be cautious and genuinely understand what the provider means by “host limitless # of domain names.” In many cases, they tell you you may have an infinite # of domains pointing to your single website. That, in all likelihood, isn’t always what you need.
I mentioned the usage of Visual Studio earlier. That tool is remarkable and makes improvement SOOOO an awful lot less complicated. I did a lot of development using LAMP and got a few sites up and walking. I used Eclipse with a PHP plugin, and it labored pretty excellently. I didn’t have Apache strolling or Linux, so I couldn’t simply debug; however, I managed. When it was time to create a superior website, I quickly switched to ASP.NET and use Visual Studio. Debugging became a snap, and the coding became made tons less difficult to Intellisense and Visual Studio’s capacity to “import” web offerings and make them simpler for me to name from my code.
Each of the era options has professionals and cons. If you want to get a domain up quickly and it’ll display basic statistics (text, photographs, video), then WordPress is a brilliant alternative. If you want an extra superior internet website butbut do not want to spend much cash on development equipment, then LAMP is the high-quality choice. Finally, if you already have Visual Studio or know .NET programming, ASP.NET is a superb choice. If you’re fortunate and can realize all 3, you can use the proper device for the task irrespective of what.
