Putting up packaged software on sites can be affected by what your host does to your site. Your site might be hosted on a Windows server or on a Linux server. Which one is better? It’s the choice of the programmer and that choice is largely determined by the programmer’s background. Programmers who were taught in the .net/asp arena have earned Microsoft certification and the credibility that goes with it. However, Microsoft has been slow to become a part of the Internet. Because of their place they have tried to set their own standards on the web, when the standards had already been established by the open source community. The open source community consists of programmers who believe that source code for applications should be available to all and who contribute because they love doing it. It is not controlled by a corporation. HTML, the language the internet was built on, was started that way. PHP is an open source language and is the language used on the Linux server.
Both the ASP language of the Windows server and PHP, the language of the Linux server, continue to change and evolve. These two languages are about functions of a site. As they evolve the context of the language can change. These servers must grow with the language. If someone programs in PHP4 and the server is compatible with PHP4 everything works fine. When programmers start programming in PHP5 their sites may not work on the PHP4 server. The server must then be upgraded to PHP5. Guess what; the sites programmed in PHP4 may have problems and stop working. These sites are broken and must be fixed. Read more …