"Plat_Forms" is a competition in which top-class teams of three programmers compete to implement the same requirements for a web-based system within 30 hours, each team using a different technology platform (e.g. Java EE, .NET, PHP, Perl, Python, or Ruby on Rails).

Its purpose is to provide new insights into the real (rather than purported) pros, cons, and emergent properties of each platform. The evaluation will analyze many aspects of each solution, both external (usability, functionality, reliability, performance, etc.) and internal (structure, understandability, flexibility, etc.).

The first instance of Plat_Forms (with only Java, Perl, and PHP) took place in January 2007.

• Go to the Plat_Forms 2007 website