What's The Greatest Web Software Ever?

An anonymous reader writes "What's The Greatest Web Software Ever Written?, Charlie Babcock of InformationWeek asks, in his follow up to last year's widely read list of greatest software period. The winner then was BSD 4.3. The new Top 12 list is a little funky in that it doesn't distinguish between apps, sites, and controls — XMLHttpRequest object set — is one of the winners. It includes many of the usual suspects, like Digg and AIM, along with some unexpected winners. (like World of Warcraft) The number one choice however, Apache server, is arguably correct."

Re:My List

[PenguSven]

You meant flash is server side? well then you're clearly wrong. however i do agree that flash is clearly NOT a great innovation 90% of the time.

Re:PHP all the way.

[swsuehr]

Actually no, Apache isn't popular because of PHP. Apache was quite popular well before PHP was even *invented*. Apache + Perl as a development stack was quite popular prior to PHP and still is to this day.

The LAMP stack was simply the *only* way to develop web apps and definitely didn't become popular as an alternative to ASP. Rather, ASP was developed as an alternative to the Apache stack.

Less click, more read

[JonasH]

Single page version of the story [informationweek.com].

Re:My List

[nuintari]

2 - Routed - the router daemon that, in some shape, form or fashion, runs probably 90% of the internet. Without routers to move the traffic, the rest of it just a moot point

You are kidding right? You don't actually think that routed runs anything major do you? For starters, unix systems are not routers, they can be used as such, I use one at home. But for a backbone connection with millions of packets per second, they are a poor choice. They cannot keep up with a good cisco or foundry router.

Next, routed implements RIP, an interior routing protocol, for use within one AS, you _never_ use RIP for external routes to other networks, that is where BGP comes into play. Might I also mention that RIP is an ancient interior routing protocol, with serious limitations that make it a poor choice for all but the simplest networks. Most modern networks run on OSPF for internal routing, RIP is just pathetic.

I don't know anyone who still uses routed for anything serious, and certainly not the 90% figure you made up. I doubt it accounts for 1% of 1% of all routed traffic. It is just an old bat that has fallen by the wayside. Even networks that still use RIP for a segment or all of their interior routing use a better implementation of RIP than the one in routed.

If you want to use a UNIX system for a router, I suggest you look into OpenBSD's OpenOSPF and OpenBGP.

Mosaic!

[Tablizer]

Mosaic is what "triggered" the popularity of the Web. Apache simply built up on an existing concept and would have happened in some form anyhow because it was driven by a known need. Without Mosaic, the web may never have happened, letting commercial networks such as Compuserve and Prodigy come to dominate instead. Same with search engines: they existed in various forms and AltaVista and Google simply improved them. (One could argue that Gopher preceded Mosiac, but Gopher itself wasn't widely accepted.)

Re:The Java Platform

[tweakt]

Say, can I use an interpreted scripting language on the JVM? Which one would be most suited?

Sure, take your pick:

• Rhino Javascript engine - built in to Java SE 6 [java.net]
• Groovy - An agile dynamic language for the Java Platform [codehaus.org]
• BeanShell: Lightweight Scripting for Java [beanshell.org]
• The Sleep Scripting Project [hick.org]

I'm sure there's others...

Skip the Ads, here's the picks

[Anonymous Coward]

In the same order as the author used in the 7th ad-filled page*:

12. AOL Instant Messenger
11. Digg
10. Hotmail
9. World Of Warcraft
8. Wikipedia
7. XMLHttpRequest object set
6. Amazon.com
5. eBay
4. The Well
3. Craigslist
2. AltaVista
1. Apache

*If you want to say thank you, mod up -- and thank YOU.

Mod parent Misleading - NOT Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

For starters, unix systems are not routers, they can be used as such, I use one at home. But for a backbone connection with millions of packets per second, they are a poor choice. They cannot keep up with a good cisco or foundry router.

Um, sorry but that is just plain wrong. The irony of your assertion is that Cisco uses a QNX dervied OS in its high end routers. QNX is very much a Unix, in fact probably the most standards adherent "free" Unix available. So yes, Unix systems are routers, in fact the best ones.

Moderators, get a clue. (OK, maybe not routed, but certainly Unix)

http://www.qnx.com/markets/networking_telecom/ [qnx.com]
http://www.qnx.com/news/pr_1074_4.html [qnx.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS-XR [wikipedia.org]
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/prod_051898.html [cisco.com]
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/146/pressroom/199 8/may98/16.html [cisco.com]
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5763/product s_tech_note09186a0080772675.shtml [cisco.com]
aw hell, take a look at the search results yourself:
http://www.google.com/search?q=QNX+site%3Acisco.co m [google.com]
http://www.google.com/search?q=cisco+qnx [google.com]

It's pronounced QUE-NIX - get it?