Hmmm...not really sure what to name this thread...
I'm preparing to write a banner ad system, and I'm trying to figure out which technologies (or combination of) would provide the most efficiency for server load.
Obviously, executable server side includes would be simple--basically write a perl script to randomly pull an ad from a database (ok, ok...a text file of ad images with accompanying URLs). However, this is having a perl script or 2 execute with every page request, which (I gather) requires a perl process being started, executing, and quiting. This is fine, until I start getting a several hundred pages per minute...
Another method I've considered would be using PHP to pull ads out of MySQL. Now, I don't really know these 2 well at the moment, but from what I understand MySQL is always running, thus eliminating some of the latency that perl would have.
Does anyone have any idea which would be less intensive (based on a potentially high load) for an SME server without having to install anything else?
TIA,
Quade