Does it matter which scripting language I choose?

[Nick Carlson]

Hello everyone,

I'm primarily a Php developer. Once in a while, like to develop stand-alone script and either sell them, or turn them over to the public as open source. I've recently been use ruby on rails quite a bit, as well as some python (Django).

My question is, does the average script user care what language a script is written in? Obviously their webhost needs to support the language. But the real issue is, does the language determine whether or not the user will buy/download and install the script?

Thanks.

[dionsiseire]

i would say it does matter, hosting is the biggest concern, but script wise, most people like being able to edit and modify the scripts for their particular site ( provided its not encrypted )

and as statistics show, PHP is used on 40% of the web, just under 20 million domains using php as their language of choice

or that there is substantially more php developers, php tutorials and php hacker ( someone that just writes code to make something work not a system infiltrator ) on PHP

Ruby hasnt hit the heights yet
ASP is commercial ( well deployment costs )
JSP isnt as well know
Python app are few and far between
Perl is aging

when i go looking for applications, i look for PHP because although im not proficient, my knowledge of basic C programming, VB, Perl, JSP, ASP ( all basics were thought in my college ) i can take a PHP application and generally either understand the code and modify or make small changes to suit without breaking it.

i would say that online, right now, PHP apps are the forefront of people mind unless you deploy on microsoft to which ASP may be what your looking for


** i have no statistics for ASP or Python but my general app search is my basis for my feel for the lack of apps in a certain language **

[nameslot]

I don't think the scripting matters. It is in very rare cases where you want something done and its not acheiveable easily in the one.

[VelvetElvis]

Php has a reputation for making it easy to write bad aps. That's why I won't touch anything that's encoded with a ten foot pole, nor will I pay until I've seen the code.

I'm going to be inclined to look a lot harder at a php ap than I am at a commercial zope product or something.