Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

February 19, 2009

CGI: The Multipurpose Development Tool

One of the major draws of web hosting is all the automated features that are provided.  A website that is highly interactive appeals more to visitors and offers many benefits from a business aspect.  Aside from allowing your users to get hands on, automated features can also be used to make your site easy to manage.  There are many ways to enjoy this type of functionality and all involve client or server-side scripting.

Scripting refers to the use of languages specifically designed for web programming.  These languages are abundant and come in a great variety.  Many client-side scripts are written in the Java language, one of the most widely used tools available.  However, several website functions require server-side scripting languages such as ASP, Perl or PHP.  While new programming languages are emerging, you can still get a lot of automation from one of the oldest development tools around, CGI.

CGI Shopping Carts

If you plan to sell products or services online, your website just wouldn't be complete without a shopping cart.  Some of the best shopping carts available are compiled of CGI scripts.  This protocol makes an excellent choice for shopping cart programs because it performs well on multiple operating systems including Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac OS X.  It also integrates seamlessly with popular databases such as MySQL and MS Access.  A shopping cart built from CGI scripts gives you exceptional performance with user-friendliness that makes for easy tax and shipping calculations.  Although many of the newer shopping cart programs are scripted in languages such as Perl or PHP, there is still a large number of functioning carts based on CGI scripts.

CGI User Management

If you want to provide users with access to some of the interactive features of your site, you will often need to set up some form of entry point.  This could be done for a variety of reasons.  Perhaps you want to keep track of your users or want to permit them to post on your message board.  Whatever the reason, CGI scripts can be used to easily create an automated registration process where visitors enter a username and password to access particular areas on your site.

CGI Web Forms

Almost everyone is familiar with web forms.  Most of them are simple and can be easily generated with CGI scripts.  When a visitor enters data into a web form and submits it, a CGI script automatically takes over the process, either sending information to an email address or saving the data to a database where it can be accessed at a later time.

CGI scripts have several beneficial uses and these are only a few.  If the task for your website calls for automation, it can usually be accomplished with CGI.  Microsoft has taken server-side programming to new heights with ASP.NET while Ruby on Rails is becoming a preferred choice for advanced developers.  More languages are certain to come along, but as long as we have use for websites, good old CGI is sure to be around.

Tags: ASP,  Perl,  Mac,  linux,  Java,  CGI,  automated features,  asp.net,  shopping cart,  server-side scripting,  Scripting,  php,  windows,  unix