Requirements for Web Designing and Programming

Jasper · Joined: 04 Mar 2007 Posts: 16

Can anyone please tell me, what Programming languages and other things I should learn before i design and program on the web. I hear about Perl, PHP, JSP, ASP....etc..it so confusing... Can anyone pls tell me the use of each and when to use what?

Pattons3rd · Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 1212 Location: Colorado

Start with HTML & CSS, then Javscript, then any of PHP, ASP or any other server side language is my recommendation.

SteveH · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 208

Absolutely agree with P3.

XHTML, CSS and JavaScipt are musts. PHP and/or ASP/VBS (should probably learn .NET versions) will eventually lead you into mySQL (for PHP) and SQL (ASP/VBS).

Avoid freaking yourself out about how much there is to learn; there's soo much awesome, oh-so-cool and useful stuff you can do with just a little.

Cheers, hacker.

Keikura · Joined: 24 Mar 2007 Posts: 167 Location: U.K.

In some rough order...

XHTML
CSS
JavaScript - the basics for now, it'll allow you do other stuff later
PHP - widely used and easy to use and doesn't require much setup only Apache + PHP enabled
MySQL for databases free and widely used as well, may want to consider postgreSQL as well

Then back to JavaScript as this can get quite advanced very quickly.
Also advanced PHP + MySQL ie larger web app's rather than form processing etc.

Or depending on how you feel you could replace PHP with Perl which is a nice scripting language as well, but i reckon PHP's documentation is a lot nicer.

Personally I don't see the point in .NET tbh.
I mean under .NET you have VBS, C#, ASP and lots of other stuff, which is all .NET but they are all different languages.

SteveH · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 208

Keikura · Joined: 24 Mar 2007 Posts: 167 Location: U.K.

I have no idea. I can't keep track of these 'extra' languages MS brings out - renames and extends.

In my view if your a web developer you code your projects not use pre-made drop in components. The probem is there are two web developer types, client and server. .NET seems to muddle the two together really. And probably produces bloated code for both as well.

With using say PHP+XHTML and JS+XHML+CSS they can be created separately almost, the integration of the two is very important as is the outputted source from the server side application that is sent to the client ie the XHTML that is used by the client side developer with JS and CSS.

Obviously if a company runs windows web servers they'll want .NET devs. Probably since you can get Perl and PHP for windows, oh and Ruby/RoR.

My main point is if your say an web dev. but do it for fun and not money then your hard pushed to find a windows web host - the closest to get (quite easily) is FrontPage extensions and hardly anyone uses those.

my other problem with .NET is the fact you can create desktop applications that require it. So is .NET an online set of languages or a offline set? It's a big jumble of everything and anything in my view.

I know this post is quite long and not all that well structured so you'll have to do the best you can to understand it. : P

SteveH · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 208

Well, ok. We're touching on my own distaste for MS, here. As far as Jasper is concerned (sorry to speak of you in the third person in your own thread, Jasper), he's either going to like site development or application development better, and if he's thinking about certification for web application development, I think it would be in his best interest to be ASP.NET/ADO.NET certified.

Of course, Jasper, if your talking about developing websites only, then you don't really have to worry about learning .NET.

Jasper · Joined: 04 Mar 2007 Posts: 16

Thanks to all who helped me clear my doubt. I so far, know HTML, little Javascript and CSS. SO i have to learn PHP/Perl next.

One more doubt I have is, What is the difference between DHTML and XHTML and when to use what??

SteveH · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 208

DHTML is a marketing term coined by Netscape back in the day. They used the term to describe how you could build web sites and site components that were either put into motion, or responsive to user interaction.

DHTML is a combination of a markup language (originally HTML -- XHTML came later), CSS and JavaScript (also a term coined by Netscape, by the way, which has nothing to do with Java).

So, XHTML would be the markup language component of DHTML, although you could use earlier versions of HTML.

AJAX is similar to DHTML in that it uses a combination of markup, CSS and JavaScript, and make web page components responsive to user interaction. The primary difference between AJAX and DHTML is that AJAX uses server calls to make changes to a page without going to a new page.

Jasper · Joined: 04 Mar 2007 Posts: 16

Ya, I got that ...but which one do I have to learn XHTML, DHTML or AJAX?? I only know the basics of HTML...

I also have been modifying a small website.. and there are codes like the one below coming in the html pages,are these perl code??

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" TYPE="text/javascript">

</SCRIPT>

<p class="title">Add A New Action</p>
<form name="the_form" id="add_action">
<p>Action Type:
<select name="action_name" id="action_name" onChange="showHide(this)">
[% FOREACH action = action_list %]
<option value="[% action.name %]">[% action.display %]
[% END %]
</select>
<input type=button name="next" value=" " class="gobtn" onClick="checkAndSubmit()" onmouseover="this.className='gobtn gobtnhov'" onmouseout="this.className='gobtn'">
<input type=hidden name="cmd" value="next_add_action">
<input type=hidden name="context_id" value="[% context_id %]">
<input type=hidden name="bc_context_id" value="[% bc_context_id %]">
</p>
[% FOREACH action = action_list %]
<div id="desc[% action.name %]" style="position:absolute; visibility:hidden;">
<p>Action Description: <br/>[% action.desc %]</p>
</div>
[% END %]
</form>

What is [% %] for??

SteveH · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 208

Jasper. If you really got what I was saying, you wouldn't be asking me what to learn. [X]HTML, CSS and JavaScript are components of DHTML and AJAX, so learn [X]HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

XHTML is not substantially different from HTML. XHTML is stricter on coding rules, a more disciplined practice, but the code is the same as HTML.

With XHTML you more deliberately separate content from style, and use the following coding rules:

-- All lowercase tags and attributes.
-- Attribute values always enclosed in quotes.
-- All tags closed either as paired tags(<p></p>) or unpaired tags (<br />).

The transition from HTML to XHTML is not difficult.

In the code you posted, the top section is JavaScript. The code delimited by [% %] is proprietary template code, not an official scripting language.

It means that somebody used a template program to build the website.

Jasper · Joined: 04 Mar 2007 Posts: 16

Steve, i really dont understand what is a template doing here... can u pls explain this concept to me?? Why is this used here? From this, you can access a database right?? But If I have to modify the database, where do i do that...?? sorry for the trouble..and a big thanks for helping me so much.

SteveH · Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 208

Sorry, Jasper, I wasn't clear at all there.

FOREACH... END sure looks like PERL to me.

The [% %] delimiters tell the server to parse the code between the delimiters as PERL, but they appear to be part of a proprietary template code.

In fact, I think we're looking at code used with the PERL Template Toolkit module.

There are variable created somewhere outside of the posted page, and where you see code like this: