Good (scripting) languages for web

[Elysia]

I have been researching of late... having to have had use "bad" languages such as Java.
Basically, what I want to ask is if there is any language for the web that simplifies resource management similar to RAII?
By that I mean languages that don't force you to use some kind of try/catch/finally everywhere an exception might be thrown in order to force some resource closed (such as Java).

For example, say I have a database which needs to be closed, and some in between opening it.
Is there a mechanism in PHP/Perl/ASP/<name_your_language> to make sure the database always gets closed regardless if exceptions are thrown or not, without having to retort to some petty try/finally solution?

[Fordy]

I always opt for Python, but that's my preference.

It does use the try/finally scheme, but also uses the "with" resource block system (Understanding Python's "with"..statement) that most dbapi interfaces adhere to

As well as that it has a pretty good posix interface, nice C++ interfacing with the Python API, SWIG or Boost and it works well in most circumstances (COM on Windows, Web programming, shell programming on linux.....etc)

RAII is a _very_ nice scheme to use, but apart from C++, it doesn't seem that popular amongst popular languages

[phantomotap]

Ah, never mind, Fordy got there first.

Soma

[Elysia]

Why raii is hated outside the c++ world is beyond me. It has only advantages over garbage collection schemes.
Anyway, nice to see something having sense enough to provide such a scheme at least. Still, other suggestions are still welcome.

[Fordy]

Why raii is hated outside the c++ world is beyond me. It has only advantages over garbage collection schemes.
Anyway, nice to see something having sense enough to provide such a scheme at least. Still, other suggestions are still welcome.

I guess most languages rely on reference counting (like python) or deferred garbage collection (java etc) so resource management isn't so important to people using these languages (Bubba posted a link a while back that showed you couldn't really control memory reclamation in languages like C# whether you wanted to or not so people don't really worry about it).

[Elysia]

Reference counting, eh? Sounds like python should be able to destroy objects when they go out of scope automatically, then. And with the addition of the with statement, it should easily work as an RAII scheme.
Maybe there is some hope in the world, after all...

[NeonBlack]

This has always bothered me too. The next best thing to C++ RAII for closing things like database connections and file handles is C#'s IDisposable interface (not a scripting language, but it sounded like you cared more about web than "scripting"). Though this still requires you to do declarations inside a

using(){}

block, which much better than try/finally still isn't ideal. The lack of some type of automatic deterministic destructor is one of C#'s biggest weaknesses (I think it's a great language for the most part).

[Elysia]

Yeah, it's for web. For desktop, I can always use C++ unless I am forced to use another language.
But for web, I don't have any requirements, really, so I am free to choose the best language possible.
I put the (scripting) inside parenthesises to say it's optional or I'm not sure if it should be or not.

I don't know about C#, though. I'm not really familiar with how it's used, so I'm not sure what features the web hosting needs.
Does it work with most free hosts, for example? If not, what's a good, relatively cheap, paid host that has support for such scripting?
Does many servers support C# for the web? Is it general enough, just as C++ is general for desktop?

[Fordy]

>>Does many servers support C# for the web?

IIS for windows (no shock there) and there is mod_mono for apache, but I have never tried it. Might be trickier to get hosting for a decent price though, while PHP/Python/Perl hosting is all over the web.

[Elysia]

Then C# doesn't sound like a good candidate.

[phantomotap]

Really dude, throw some examples at Python for a couple of weeks. If you can deal with the horrid syntax of C++ templates and especially C++1x lamda you'll have no problems giving Python source a pass. If you don't like the facilities it has to offer, you can move on to other things, but once you combine it with some of the template/reporting engine libraries available it is a very nice language for web development.

Soma

[Elysia]

I am going to experiment with C++ CGI and failing that, Python, I think.

[Fordy]

I am going to experiment with C++ CGI and failing that, Python, I think.

C++ - Best of luck getting it hosted, and tell me when you do so I can test some buffer over-run exploits on it

[phantomotap]

I am going to experiment with C++ CGI and failing that, Python, I think.

Is this a project targeting a third-party shared host/server?

If so, you can pretty much safely assume that actual native compiled code is right out. A crazy lot of companies will flatly refuse you the possibility of running native code. It is idiotic in the advent of modern security measures, but it is an "old hat" rule that is likely to hamper your project.

Soma

[Elysia]

Heh. Well, you never know.
If I find someone willing to admit it (I think dreamhost does), I'll be sure to pass on my findings. It would be the best of both worlds.

Is this a project targeting a third-party shared host/server?

If so, you can pretty much safely assume that actual native compiled code is right out. A crazy lot of companies will flatly refuse you the possibility of running native code. It is idiotic in the advent of modern security measures, but it is an "old hat" rule that is likely to hamper your project.

Soma

This isn't really a project, but more of me finding what language(s) and solution(s) to use for my web projects.
So yeah, this is just really an experiment now. It might, for example, work as a solution if I get my own server, so it's not a solution I'd throw out the window, but I might need a "backup" plan for what language to use failing the availability of hosting companies allowing native code.