Application Server Technologies

Dreamweaver 8 supports five application server technologies: ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JSP, and PHP. This book concentrates on three of these technologies, ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP, for several reasons:

• These server technologies are in widespread use and are freely available to most readers.

• They have similar code and don't require the use of object-oriented programming languages.

• ColdFusion is tightly integrated with Dreamweaver.

For readers using Windows:

• ASP is built into the IIS Web server.

• The ColdFusion MX 7 Developer edition can be downloaded at no charge from the Macromedia site and is included with Macromedia Studio 8.

• PHP is open source and can be down-loaded at no charge.

For readers using Mac OS X:

• PHP 4.3 is preinstalled on both Mac OS 10.3 and 10.4. This book also shows you how to install PHP 5.

• ColdFusion MX 7 is now available for Mac OS X 10.4 users.

If you prefer to use Dreamweaver with ASP.NET or JSP, you can still use this book. Each chapter that shows you how to use Dreamweaver with ASP, ColdFusion, and/or PHP for a Web development process also lets you know if the process is similar when you're using JSP and/or ASP.NET.