>Hi Steve,
>
>Cgi-bin is still very popular and has been improved, so that it is very competitive with the others you listed. As a matter of fact, cgi-bin, asp, asp.net, php, etc are essentially all the same thing. Cgi-bin is the name of the script directory used in Unix/Linux machines before Microsoft discovered the internet. I think IIS uses another name for its asp scripts, but the directory is essentially the same as a cgi-bin directory. Directories used by the others you listed are the equilvalent of the cgi-bin directory.

This isn't quite true. CGI is an EXE that gets executed on the server when called. It is definately not a script. ASP, VB Script, Java Script and others are scripting languages. ASP.NET can be precompiled and not scripted. On IIS, ASP, VB Script, Java Script, and ASP.NET run as ISAPI extensions, meaning a DLL is loaded that run them.

>
>A rose by any other name is still a rose.

While the above Internet technologies, Perl, PHP, and others are all different, they can be used to generate the same results. However, they each have their good and bad points. The trick is learning what the good and bad are then using the technology that is more appropriate for your needs.