which is the best server side scripting.

many hosting companies declasre that they have asp support

does that mean jsp is not supported?

what are the basis of selection of scripting language?

-Please help decide between ASP.net or ASP & JSP. thanks-

Well honmore, none of them is "the best"...both have their strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages. So its best to go with what you can script best with but its always a bit biased.

When a company declares they offer ASP support, and they don't explicitly declare support for JSP, they probably don't have it, because if they had JSP, including it in their features list would surely attract more customers. The same goes for ASP.Net, unless support for it is directly listed, there probably isn't any support for it either.

The basis of selection of server side scripting is choosing what you like best or you think is easier or more powerful or what you can script best at. You should also look at its availability and cost-effectiveness. JSP is very expensive and its not worth paying that much to get scripting support for it in my opinion unless you get it free or from a cheap webhost. If you have either a Windows or Linux OS, you can install both ASP or ASP.NET on your computer and install a webserver and deploy your applications to the web for free without any cost. All you need for Windows is IIS Webserver 5.0 and up, and OS Windows 2000 and up. For linux you can get ApacheASP, SunONE-ASP for Linux, Chili!SoftASP - Linux Package for ASP support. They're all apache modules. For ASP.NET support you can get Mono ASP.NET for Linux. Theres a apache module called "mod_mono" for it. For Windows, I don't really know for sure, but I think Visual Studio .NET comes with ASP.Net, atleast my VS .NET does(not so free, eh? lol). Moreover, if you don't want to install these on your computer, there are many free asp hosts on the net. But you have to pay for JSP if you want to use it on your computer. The only site I know that gives JSP for free is Astahost. There may be more, but they may not be as reliable because we would've already known of them by now.

Hehe, I don't wanna make this a rant so I'm ending it here. It might be a bit biased, but its only an opinion. But really ASP is more cost-effective than JSP because its free...

EDIT 1: Just checked, Mono ASP.NET works with windows too.
EDIT 2: Edited some missed letters and added "advantages and disadvantages" to the part at the top ...
EDIT 3: Ask for links if you need them...

agreed. as you explore, you'll probably have your own favourites. stick with what you're comfortable with.

I prefer PHP,
for window platform, I like aspX

ASP is free? hmm but as saying its more cost effective- there are a lot of pages using Active Server Pages than the JSP formats. ANd yes Visual Studio.NET does have ASP.NET in it i'm sure

I use coldfusion. I think in the future, coldfusion will beat asp. Because It has alot of tag for you. You don't buy extra thing to use form mail(send mail from server). The chart. blah blah. It easier than asp.

well, from what i've heard, jsp is more powerfull than asp, however, asp.net is a lot better than just asp.
i still prefer php, because of the easy 'programming', though asp.net has improved a lot by letting you decide wether you use vb or c# (c#!!! hell yeah!).
another great thing about asp.net is that your scripts aren't handled by a script engine, but compiled to dll files! that makes that opening your page for the first time will be a little slow, but after that, it's very fast. this is great for companies that have their own server with a memory that's big enough to handle a big part of the site. the ddl's will remain in the memory as there's no need to delete them as there's space enough.
maybe an idea for php... compile, not interpret

Php is Free
Php is powerful also in OO(Object Oriented)
Php is simple
It's clear that i prefer php

so to sum it all up:
-if it's not a bigass company site and you want to save your money and use a free/cheap host, you'll have to use php or asp. it'll be easier to find a php host and php is much more powerfull than asp, so the only answer is PHP!
-if you have to make a site that will have thousands of users a day, you have quite some money and can get a good host, go for asp.net (not asp!!!) or jsp!

as simple as that

to me... its jsp...