PHP

PHP is what is known as a server-side programming language. What this means is that special
code can be put into each web page you visit. When you visit the page, the server that the
website lives on processes the special code and then sends you the complete web page. It
lets you do a lot of special, tricky things.

PHP is a free server-side language, is very fast and powerful, and can run on nearly any computer operating system.

There are several other server-side languages, including:

• Python - A powerful, high level language combined with the incredible Django framework can really help things along.
• Ruby - Using the Ruby on Rails framework can speed things up at the beginning but can bog things down as you need to scale up.
• Coldfusion - an extremely easy to learn language. I believe it is available for Macs, Windows, and Unix/Linux systems. The problem is the price tag- a couple thousand dollars for each computer you want to run it on.
• Java - an extremely powerful/scalable language. Unfortunately, it's also more difficult to program. There are both expensive and free options for Java.
• ActiveServer Pages (ASP) - ASP is a Microsoft® product. As such, no matter what it's performance or simplicity, it is only available for Windows systems. To me, that is like buying a new car that only runs on Conoco® gasoline. Why would I do it? It's not about the Conoco® gasoline, which I'm sure is very good (although the analogy breaks down a little here since Windows® is not). But what happens if I've on a trip and there's no Conoco® stations? This is not a good way to go.

After these considerations, the most important thing to consider is that it is fairly simple to find a web hosting company (such as me!) that supports PHP. If the host doesn't support it, you can't do it.