Hopefully this question is appropriate for this site -- please let me know if not!
I am reading a textbook on web development (Fundamentals of Web Development by Connolly and Hoar, 3e) and while I am still early on, it has at this point fleshed out the nature of the "server-side stack" as consisting of the OS, a web server software, database software, and scripting software. I had thought that I understood that it was the web server software's responsibility to understand the incoming HTTP requests to the server and then dispatch the database or scripting software as required, but the text does say the following:
Finally (or perhaps firstly if you are starting a project from scratch) is the choice of server-side development language or platform. This development platform will beused to write software that responds to HTTP requests. The choice for a LAMP stack is usually PHP or Python.
This makes it seem like the scripting software is used to create executables that respond to the incoming HTTP requests. Can someone set me straight here?