$CBAS has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

First, I have no intention of starting an OS, language or server war so be warned. <g>

I've been programming simple CGI apps for a while now and would like to get deeper into the server side programming stuff.

I've been reading alot about mod_perl for Apache but I prefer Windows 2000 running IIS5 (because I grew up using Windows and Win2K is the first one I like :-)) and would like to know what my options are for speeding up the scripts. Is ISAPI the (only) way to go?

I know some tools cache scripts and keep them compiled but most of them cost *way* too much for li'l CBAS ;-)

I guess I *could* use Apache on Windows but that seems like not-the-right-tool.

Thanks in advance,
CBAS

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: mod_perl equivalent for IIS?
by tinman (Curate) on May 03, 2001 at 23:18 UTC

    $CBAS, I wanted to (still want to) find a good answer to this myself, so I did a little bit of research not too long ago..

    Unfortunately, given that you have limited money (as I did), there really aren't very many options available to you..

    First of all, you may want to read about ISAPI Perl.. ActiveState Perl ships with an ISAPI module, and this has some advantages over a simple CGI script and external Perl interpreter..

    Another thing you can try (sorry, but this costs $$$) is PerlEx.. Its not as expensive as some "optimizers", but it does cost quite a bit, so YMMV :o)

    Now, onto other stuff, I'd strongly urge you to reconsider Apache, even for Win32.. I run an Apache server on Win2000, and while its not the fastest, it handles moderate (100 concurrent users) load quite happily.. Note that Apache 2.0 (still in beta) promises to deliver equivalent performance to non Unix platforms, so this is also something to look out for...Look here for more details...

    Finally, you can get mod_perl binaries for Win32 from this location.
    HTH

(Ovid) Re: mod_perl equivalent for IIS?
by Ovid (Cardinal) on May 03, 2001 at 23:10 UTC
    Good question and I wish I had a good answer. We're stuck with IIS here at work and are exploring alternatives to CGI. Without going the mod_perl route, we're probably going to go with PerlEx. Unfortunately, it's $395.00 per license.

    Cheers,
    Ovid

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