If you’re confident in languages such as Perl, PHP or CGI you might be thinking “What other languages should I know or learn?” Well, you might be surprised to find that while Perl and PHP are quick and dirty and will likely do most of what you want and need for web based applications, there is another alternative that can improve performance and enhance security – A language called “C.”

Have you ever wondered why your web applications can take a long time to execute? Well, this is mainly because your code must be compiled every time it is run. As you might guess, this takes valuable seconds, and can be the difference between quick and lightning fast! Imagine an application consisting of 5000 lines of Perl code – this could take several seconds to compile and then several more to actually execute. The beauty of C is that you create pre-compiled binary executables.
In other words, when you call your C code from you web application it doesn’t need to be compiled first, just executed. This can shave valuable seconds off load times.

Another added bonus with pre-compiled C code is that the resulting executable is a binary file, meaning the code is encrypted. This prevents anyone from having direct access to your source code – a great security feature to protect proprietary code. So, if you’re looking for a way to improve the performance of your web application or tighten security over your code, consider giving your web applications a shot of Vitamin C – I believe you will be very impressed with the
outcome.