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Plat_Forms 2011

Welcome to the official website of Plat_Forms - The web development platform comparison

"Plat_Forms" is a contest and competition in which top-class teams of three programmers compete to implement the same requirements for a web-based system within two days, using different technology platforms (e.g. Java, .NET, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Scala, Smalltalk, JavaScript or what-have-you).

Its purpose is not to determine "the" best web development platform, but rather 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, security, performance, etc.) and internal (structure, modularity, understandability, flexibility, etc.).

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

The 2011 instance of Plat_Forms took place January 18th to 19th, 2011, in Nürnberg (Germany).

The participating teams for Plat_Forms 2011 are listed on the Teams 2011 page. See also the announcement in our blog.

The 2012 instance of Plat_Forms will take place early 2012. We will inform you here and on our announcement mailing list (see below) as soon as we know the details.

Plat_Forms Unconference 2011

From November 25 to November 27, 2011, we hosted an unconference at the Institut für Informatik of the Freie Universität Berlin where we presented the results of the 2011 execution of Plat_Forms and discussed web development platforms-related topics. Please see https://wiki.plat-forms.org/PlatForms/UnConference2011 for more information.

Next steps

  • During the contest, we will blog so that you can share some of the experience even if you are not on site. See the 2007 blog.
  • The results will be posted about half a year after the contest. (Yes, we do serious evaluation!)

What you can do now