what programming language

Question

Hi there,

When some webpages are not displaying the extensions of server side files which generate that content, how can you know (as a visitor) in what language was that site build?

Many thanks

Answer 1

Try this tool:

http://builtwith.com/

Bascially you wish to find out what type of server is behind a site, be it IIS (Internet Information Server), Apache or whatever. It may give you a clue into the technology, but cannot tell what kind of framework the place was built with. Somebody may have written the site manually with PHP or used CakePHP framework or something else. The only way is too look at the url structure, site organization and at the source code (markup) hoping to find there giveaways.

Answer 2

There is no way of being sure. You could look in the source, as sometimes tools such as Front Page will leave their signatures. Also, it may be worth looking in the Response Headers, using a tool such as Firebug, as some sites will return Http headers such as X-AspNet-Version, which indicates that it was generated using Asp.Net.

Answer 3

There are many technologies that allow URL rewriting, so you can only tell if the author want you to know (like, "powered by XYZ") or if there are errors or imperfections in the html rendering. My opinion is that a well written web app should not let you guess the underlying technology (except for the "powered by XYZ").