What is LAMP/LAPP and AJAX?

LAMP is an acronym referring to the collection of the Linux operating system, Apache webserver, MysSQL database server and Perl or PHP programming languages - and LAPP refers to Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL database server and Perl/PHP. Basically, a LAMP/LAPP "compatible" program should be able to run on that platform - however, most LAMP/LAPP software will also run on Microsoft Windows (instead of Linux), Microsoft Internet Information Services or IBM Websphere instead of Apache or PostgreSQL/MySQL/Oracle/Access/MS-SQL instead of MySQL/PostgreSQL!

LAMP and LAPP are commonly used as the "back end" for the vast majority of internet websites (according to Netcraft.com, in April 2008, over 50% of all internet websites ran on Apache and according to Tiobe.com in May 2008 PHP was the 4^th most popular language in the world - followed by Perl at 6^th place and Python in 7^th!).

AJAX is an acronym relating to Asynchronous Javascript And XXML - basically this is the technology which provide client side interactivity - such as real-time scrolling of maps, automatic updating when details are submitted and helps make web pages "feel faster". However, AJAX has some problems with multi-browser compatibility (code that works on Internet Explorer does not necessarily work on Firefox or on Safari) and hence there has, over the last couple of years, been a number of Javascript libraries (or frameworks) built (such as Yahoo!'s YUI, jQuery, Mootools, Prototype and Script.aculo.us - all of which Beebware have worked on in some form or another).

LAMP, LAPP and AJAX Development services

Beebware has been developing LAMP based software for over 10 years - initally starting with Perl on a Debian-based Linux Apache/MySQL based system and then migrating to PHP and PostgreSQL - therefore we have considerable experience in these technologies and getting them to work together. We have also been using AJAX since before the term was coined - we first utilised Microsoft's XMLHttpRequest system in 2002 on an intranet Management Information System - and we've been putting it to good use to enhance user experience since then!

We have experience in setting up and configuring Debian, RedHat, Centos and Fedora based Linux systems, configuring and installing Apache 1.2, 1.3, 2.0 and 2.1, configuring and installing MySQL 4, MySQL 5 and PostgreSQL, configuring, installing and developing in PHP3, PHP4 and PHP5 along with Perl: our experience of Perl goes back over 10 years and PHP over 7.

We prefer, where possible, to utilise the Yahoo! Inc "YUI" (Yahoo User Interface) framework for AJAX based work, but we have had experience of developing web sites utilising jQuery, Mootools, Prototype and Script.aculo.us (and even developing our own Javascript/AJAX framework) - we believe in utilising the right tool for the right job: if we're working on a public faciling website which just needs basic Javascript form validation, we'll prefer to "roll-our-own" code: however, for a multi-purpose Intranet solution we'll go for a pre-built library as 90% of the time the web site will need the additional functionality. We prefer Yahoo's library as it's supported by a major organisation, it utilises the "BSD Licence" (meaning it can be used in 'closed source' application), is regularly updated, has a wide variety of features "pre-built" (allowing for fast deployment and development) and is compatibile with all the major web browsers in use today.

Featured Project: IT Development console

Created in just over a month, this PHP and PostgreSQL system was designed to allow a 2,000 user business help log work for the 15 developers, for the work to be allocated by the development manager to team leaders and developers and for feedback to be given back to the original requestor.

This PHP and PostgreSQL system was complete with due dates, review dates and Gantt charts, this system also interacted with the company's Active Directory system to enable auto-completion of users names, email addresses and position.