Best language for Windows 2000
We were contacted to inquire about updating an old legacy web application that was built using ASP and Access. The server is running Windows 2000 Advanced Server and I believe it is IIS 5.0 (I'm trying to get confirmation about this, but the company is not technical, so I highly doubt Apache is running on the server).
What languages will be viable to update this web application on the above platform? I've never touched classic ASP much less than any web development work against Windows 2000 / IIS 5. There are no plans to upgrade the server to anything new due to budget issues.
I'm currently leaning towards moving to a SQLite based database (the client isn't too keen on installing MySQL at the moment, but I'm still in the planning stage and this is a relatively low traffic site), but what language would I handle it with? Does ASP.NET work well under IIS 5? Does PHP do anything under this type of setting?
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I have a similar situation, it was about a year ago and I ended up using asp.net 2.0.
All in all, okay, but the car shows age, I usually need someone to give it three fingers of a salute every month or so, and it blew up the dog recently.
If it's just a small volume, you can install sql express, which will make your life much easier than something like SQLlite, since dotnet works best with other MS stuff and there is a lot of labor-saving goodness built in.
You will also be able to use access to sql migration tools if using SQL Express.
Let's also assume you are looking at something like subsonic or nhibernate, which takes care of a lot of boring and error prone stuff for you.
It really depends on where your experience lies and how big the project is, if you've never used dotnet before and then start small, it may or may not be.
Apparently php works well for win 2008 but as of 2000 never tried it. Was Apache on a 2kg field years ago but didn't use php.
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If a company is interested in value, I would be very conservative in making changes. Focus on why they want to update - do they want to add new features? What are their mid-term plans for the site? Are they having trouble maintaining the site? Moving to a custom .NET solution can only complicate matters, unless they are willing to make some ongoing development investment.
If it's a relatively simple site, they might want to consider a platform like DotNetNuke. There are hosts that sell ready-to-configure sites that can do quite a lot with minimal configuration. This combined with the professionally designed DotNetNuke UI template (offered by TemplateMonster.com) might be a good solution.
If they want to go with a custom solution, ASP.NET works great on IIS 5.0. I believe you can run .NET Framework at least 2.0, not sure about 3.0 or 3.5. The language won't affect functionality, so C # or VB.NET is fine, all other things being equal.
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In this case, I'll probably go with ASP.NET. Since you are running a Microsoft server, there will be a lot of documentation from MS on how to get the site up and running. It is much easier to maintain something when all the components are "in the same family," so to speak. Asp.net will work fine under IIS 5. It doesn't have a lot of security and scalability updates that IIS 6 does, but it does the trick.
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I managed to get a little more information. The box is running IIS 5.0 and the IT manager is handling it, more than happy to let me install whatever I need. From googling and the answers below, it seems like my best bet would be to convert the site to ASP.NET 2.0 with SQL Server Express 2005 running as a DB.
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