When GET = POST?

["Chris Thomas" <chris.thomas () lodoga co uk>]

Hi,

This has been troubling me for  a while.

When pen testing web apps where a page POSTs data it often seems just as
effective (and easier) to encode the data in the URL (i.e. use and HTTP
GET ). Is guess this is because many server-side languages do not
differentiate how a variable is set?

Whilst, from a pen test perspective,  I can see there both positive and
negative aspects to doing this, I'd like to understand it a bit better
from the application designer's/ coder's viewpoint:

- Why does it happen? Is it just lazy coding or do languages like ASP
offer no way to differentiate if data was POSTed or GETed?

- How is this situation handled in common server side languages such
PHP, etc?

Chris