How can I allow others to create Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, Perl web user interface components that interact with each other?

Question

How can I allow others to create Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, Perl web user interface components that interact with each other?

For example, one web ui component written in .NET selects a customer, and the other web user interface components are written in Java, Ruby or PHP are able to refresh showing information about the selected customer from different systems.

Answer 1

Look up something called WebServices, SOAP and XML-RPC. Should get you well on your way.

Answer 2

Use web services to wrap common code / libraries that you want to share across the interfaces. All the listed platforms have decent support for webservices.

Answer 3

Actualy, .Net can natively run all these languages because it ransforms all of them in MSIL, provided you have installed the proper compiler.

To do so, you can use visual studio and create a project, using various languages. Import you code and adapt it to fit the .net library. A think it´s a lot of work, but if you have no choices, there are not a lot of other alternatives :-(

Anyway, it´s still better to limit yourself to 1 or 2 languages or maintenance will become a nightmare.