Web development in Leeds from Thirdrock Internet

Are you being served? A more technical view

17th May 2011

It's a jungle out there (well it would be, if it wasn't so cold most of the time). When it comes to deciding how best to implement your company's website, there's a wide range of technical decisions to be made – either by you or your website developer - and a real risk of making decisions which could impact the effectiveness and lifespan of your website.

It may well be that your company has made the decision for you, Maybe you have a policy on company-wide adoption of Java; maybe you've already signed up as a Microsoft Certified Partner; or maybe you already have a website in-place which you'd like to develop further. With 15 years' of experience in a very wide range of Internet technologies, Thirdrock are brilliantly-placed to help you make good technical decisions to allow you to make the most of your website.

Since I started programming computers in 1981, I've developed systems in more than 42 different programming languages. Fortunately most of these aren't very well-suited to web development, so you're spared some of the pain. However, there is still a number of possible web server platforms you can choose from. Thankfully we have worked with all of them in our time, know what each of them can do and would be happy to help you make the right decision.

PHP is an industrial-strength programming language which has grown up hugely over the past few years. Once the favoured language of teenage bedroom hackers, PHP version 5 is a solid, proven object-oriented language with great database integration and scalability. Our PHP implementation of the software framework ensures that all of our PHP websites are built quickly and securely, while remaining extensible for future requirements and scalable – ready to cope with your website's future success.

ASP.NET is the latest incarnation in a long history of Microsoft web server technologies. It seems that everyone has a view on Microsoft – good or bad. We have watched as traditional Microsoft ASP has been superceded by a more grown-up approach to web development, to the point that we now believe that Microsoft ASP.NET is a serious contender in web server technology stakes. Accordingly, we've invested a lot of time and energy into creating a .NET version of our software framework which delivers rapid development and scalable solutions.

The Java programming language is often regarded as a heavy-weight programming language for web development, although PHP and .NET developers could (and do) argue the same of their own preferred language. The Java development environment certainly comes into its own when global companies need global solutions which handle tens of millions of data records. Java 2 Enterprise Edition provides a true commercial-grade platform, including integration with big-hitting databases such as Oracle. However, this reputation is expensive to uphold, with Java web developments often costing far more and taking far longer to develop. When completed, Java-based websites also often cost more to keep running and maintain. While we have developed websites with Java for a number of clients, we would argue the case for using PHP or .NET for all but the largest global websites serving multinationals

Thirdrock thinks...