Coding Languages for Client and Server Side Web Development
There are many different coding languages that developers can use in this day and age. But which one is the best one? There is no answer to that. All languages have their advantages and disadvantages. In more cases it is the developer himself that can take their coding language to its full potential. All languages are efficient and require programming. The question is: Which language is right for the job? Here is small definition of each common web language.
HTML/XHTML - HyperText Markup Language
HTML and XHTML are two different web languages, but are about the same. HTML is the standard web language used to day. XHTML is more of an upgrade of HTML. When you code with HTML, you most likely are coding with XHTML. It is more accessible and is very easy to learn. XHTML in one sentence: It is a cleaner code than HTML. HTML is the building blocks of development. Most developers start here and work their way up to the more complex languages. Learning this code will make your development days a lot easier, I wouldn't recommending NOT skipping this.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
CSS is one of the best languages to learn. High Recommended! CSS can hold all your design data, meaning if you have a site with a lot of h1 or h2 tags. You can code a couple of lines of code to design all your headings. Your pages no longer have to be made by tables. Your pages can be 100% flexible. CSS can enhance your design and usability in your site. CSS is accessible and can be validated with a W3C standard. CSS is also were development is heading. New browsers are becoming more dependent on this web langauge.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a coding language that can help your pages become more interactive for your visitors. Don't get JavaScript confused with Java. JavaScript and Java are two different languages. JavaScript has the ability to do some nice things. Just remember you are making it more interactive for your visitors, if this makes your site less useable then don’t do it. Don’t make your visitors hate your site. JavaScript can detect user browsers, make cookies, validate forms, dynamically add content or call different variables.
PHP - Hypertext Preprocessor
PHP is a server side web language. It can hold functions and variables to help your pages store data in a database or dynamically change your page. PHP is an open source language that can be operated on a Windows OS or a Linux OS. Most of the time MySQL is on a Linux OS. PHP can link to a wide variety of databases like MySQL, Informix, Oracle and Sybase. One of the most common type is MySQL. There are tons of open source applications that have been developed in PHP. Knowing this you can customize and use some of these open source applicaitons.
MySQL
MySQL is an open source database application that will run on a Windows OS or a Linux OS. It has queries to insert, modify, delete and select database information. You need have a coding language to do the functions to call the queries, usually PHP. PHP uses scripts to call these different queries and display information in a table or a content area.
AJAX
AJAX is a Asynchronous JavsScript and XML. AJAX has been made famous by companies like Google. When making different applications, and adding AJAX to them, you can make them work faster. AJAX can connect to the server, making it update data or call data without redirecting or refreshing the page. AJAX is also part of the W3C validation. There are some disadvantages to AJAX. Such as search engine spiders and search bots wont crawl AJAX scripts or files. They treat them just like JavaScript.
ASP - Active Server Pages
ASP is a server side language that is only supported on a Windows OS. It is the new age of PHP. It has close to the same abilities of PHP. ASP has functions, variables and the ability to link to a database. ASP can dynamic change information on your page or customize a page for different visitors.
There are More Coding Languages
These are some of the most used development coding web languages. Some might work better than others. Some you might never use in your page. But it is good to know what they can do for your page. If your site continues to grow and is increasing with traffic, some of these development coding languages can come in handy. Knowing different languages and knowing what they can do can make your job easier and increase your visitors experience more enjoyable.
