Java Servlets || JSP || PHP

[solrak29]

Ok, I just pickedup PHP and love the likeness to other languages which makes it very easy to learn
or just start using right away.  But I have wondered this for long time.  I see alot of sites with
php files being executed; more so than jsp...so just wondering from BBG perspective...which is better?

If this has already been posted, I'm new...and couldn't find anything.

[Harkins]

Ruby on Rails

[bbgames]

Ruby on Rails

Seconded. The Rails ecosystem is excellent for building games in.

[Barrikor]

PHP

PHP gives the developer complete freedom to design the back-end in whatever way you want. I like starting with a blank slate, but there are plenty of pre-made frameworks to chose form also.

(Only con is that the OO is slower then it should be, so limit the number of objects)

[Harkins]

• node.js
• Django
• Sinatra
• Zend Framework
• ASP.NET

[raestlyn]

Javascript.

Also in serverside.

[gnoh]

Java + gwt

[Chris]

PHP

It gives you the warm feeling of security and convenience. Every server comes with it preinstalled, support staff of each hosting company can help you if you are stuck with it, on any forum you find hordes of PHP programmers that can give you tips, every single online service has PHP script/example included. Also it is the fastest, or one of the fastest net languages (I don't recall which one, but the point is, it is definitely not slow).

[dsheroh]

Just to clarify a little on my vote:  Modern Perl.  Not the insecure, unmaintainable morass of 15-year-old Perl 4-era Perl that most examples and tutorials scattered throughout the net tend to be based on.

(Easy shibboleth: If the example/tutorial doesn't either start with "use strict;" or give a detailed and convincing explanation of "you should normally always use strict, but this is why I'm not using it here", then the odds are near-certain that it's crap.)

[SYKO]

for me, I love SSJS most but I haven't any experience in developing Game with it.
so, for now, I voted up PHP!

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[Nox]

I haven't done serious developing in anything but PHP so I can't vote here

A thing that caught my attention - surprising you consider/hear others consider PHP rather fast?
Not only that PHP is favorite target of flaming about it's quality, I rather hear about it being slow... not that I would like it that much less, I'm comfortable with it (although the feeling of working with something that is looked down at is not that encouraging)

[Marek]

I looked into using the Google App Engine and ultimately decided against it, for one reason: lock-in.

I love Python and I'd love to use it on GAE, but the fact that Google has a unique framework that you won't find on any other hosting platform means that once you commit to GAE, that's where you're staying.

To me, it's not just the commitment of my particular app, but the comitment to learning to use GAE and the question is: will the time invested for learning Google's framework be worth it if the knowledge can't be re-used elsewhere?

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[JGadrow]

The question was general in nature, so in light of picking one of the provided options, I went with C++. Like the earlier mentions of PHP, there are a ton of resources available for it, it's blazing fast (since it's compiled code), and you can do anything with it.

Need a background server process that your web client just requests the current game state from? C++ would be a wonderful option for that. Want a game that provides a web client and a distributed intall client? C++ might be the only provided option capable of doing that (I don't recall exactly what was there).

However, the true answer is that there is no definitive answer to this question. Generally, whatever option allows you to complete the game the fastest is the best option for you. Time equals money after all....

[Chris]

I love how these "best language topics" inevitably degenerate I understand people suggesting Ruby/Perl/Python/Java, at least these are decently popular so there is a chance you could find a example code if you include the most popular 3rd party scripts/services and you can use it on all platforms. But when I hear C++/GoogleAppEngine/ASP/Silverlight... anyone picking any of these is digging their own grave and I feel no compassion for their future agony

[ST-Mike]

Admins have ignored my deletion request - if you're not going to delete my account then don't have the option there please.

[Chris]

Anyway, I'll hold you to that comment when a future project I'm building upon AppEngine goes live My bet is it will run faster and be 10x easier to maintain that any PHP project I've developed before.

Untill Google unplug you for some reason, or stop doing business in your country (China), or untill your game need a custom/more hardware/resources

[gnoh]

I doubt that more hardware/resources will be an issue with app engine, that's why we do cloud hosting anyway to remove that problem,  App engine has it's very own set of problems relating to in particular game development,  for example you can't have comet with app engine.

My worry if I were to start developing with app engine is if Google decides to up it's prices making it uneconomical as you really do loose the ability to readily move hosts.

[JGadrow]

And why did you say C++ was digging a grave? Seems to me if you can code a billion applications and even entire operating systems with it... it's a pretty heavy-weight contender.

If you're a C++ coder and have never written a line of any of these dynamic web languages, it'll be faster for you to just write a daemonized process that the webserver communicates with than taking the time to learn a web language and utilize that. Plus you get several advantages that wouldn't be granted to others. Namely that you can do OOP without the overhead of initializing your objects on every access since they never shutdown like web scripts do.

Just because you couldn't make a decent game utilizing it doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't have great success with it. Again, the best language to use is the one you already know as anything else is just wasting time on the project.

[Barrikor]

I'm with Chris on this,

● ASP & Silverlight:

Reliance on MS. We all know how that goes.

● GoogleAppEngine:

Reliance on Google. Currently they are one of the most trustable companies out there, however if you plan on putting a huge amount of your time invested in their product, you need to be reasonably sure that they will continue on the right path for a long, long time.

The whole landing-page-quality-score debacle shook my faith in them. While they're still a very good company, personally I'd never risk betting the farm on them. It's best to lean on companies as little as possible, you never know what'll happen in the corporate world, business skirmishes and the hunt for profit will always lead to some casualties.

● C++

If writing web apps in C++ was easy then no one would have considered creating PHP and ASP; even after two decades of the web it's failed to become mainstream. Nowadays it's easier with things like Wt, but still... Not to mention that writing in C++ is more time consuming than writing in PHP or Python.

The best language being "the one that you already know" is a good phrase, but it shouldn't be taken to extremes. Sometimes you want the higher abstraction that a language provides. (Or vice-versa, a lower language for more control). Different languages serve special purposes. Also a C++ coder could start using PHP without much of a learning curve.

Personally I'm interested in the different ways of implementing PHP that are being experimented with, Ex: compiled, persistent

But, to each his own

[Harkins]

And why did you say C++ was digging a grave? Seems to me if you can code a billion applications and even entire operating systems with it... it's a pretty heavy-weight contender.

Because it sucks at strings and web coding is, I swear, 80% munging strings by volume.

But I gave it my vote because I didn't like that my preferred choices were missing.

[gnoh]

I'm surprised that with such a controversial topic as this is we haven't degenerated into a slagging match

[JGadrow]

Because it sucks at strings and web coding is, I swear, 80% munging strings by volume.

But I gave it my vote because I didn't like that my preferred choices were missing.

PHP's interpreter is written in C... So, it can't be any better at processing strings seeing as how they have to go through an interpretive process and then are dealt with in C afterwards.

[dsheroh]

If you're a C++ coder and have never written a line of any of these dynamic web languages, it'll be faster for you to just write a daemonized process that the webserver communicates with than taking the time to learn a web language and utilize that. Plus you get several advantages that wouldn't be granted to others. Namely that you can do OOP without the overhead of initializing your objects on every access since they never shutdown like web scripts do.

Yeah, but I can do that just as easily with Perl as with C++.