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Programming Languages And Functions Used Online

The use of existing and new programming languages have extended the capabilities of the Web.

What follows is a basic guide to a group of the more common languages and functions in use on the Web today.

CGI, Active Server Pages: CGI (Common Gateway Interface) refers to a specification by which programs can communicate with a Web server.

A CGI program, or script, is any program designed to accept and return data that conforms to the CGI specification.

The program can be written in any programming language, including C, Perl, and Visual Basic Script.

A common use for a CGI script is to process a form on a Web page. For example, you might fill out a form to order a book at Amazon.
The script processes your information and sends it to Amazon to process your order.

Another type of dynamically generated Web page is called Active Server Pages (ASP).

Developed by Microsoft, ASP is a programming environment that processes scripts on the Web server.

The scripts run on the server, rather than on the Web browser, to generate the HTML pages sent to browsers.

Visual Basic and JScript (a subset of JavaScript) are often used for the scripting.

ASPs end in the file extension .asp or .aspx.

Java/Java Applets: Java Java is an object-oriented programming language similar to C++.

Developed by Sun Microsystems, the aim of Java is to create programs that will be platform independent.

The Java motto is, "Write once, run anywhere." A perfect Java program should work equally well on a PC, Macintosh, Unix, and so on, without any additional programming.

This goal has yet to be realized. Java can be used to write applications for both Web and non-Web use.

Web-based Java applications are usually in the form of Java applets.

These are small Java programs called from an HTML page that can be downloaded from a Web server and run on a Java-compatible Web browser.

A few examples include live newsfeeds, moving images with sound, calculators, charts and spreadsheets, and interactive visual displays.

Java applets can tend to load slowly, but programming improvements should lead to a shortened loading time.

JavaScript/JScript: JavaScript is a programming language created by Netscape Communications.

Small programs written in this language are embedded within an HTML page, or called externally from the page, to enhance the page's the functionality.

Examples of JavaScript include moving tickers, drop-down menus, real-time calendars and clocks, and mouse-over interactions.

JScript is a similar language developed by Microsoft and works with the company's Internet Explorer browser.

XML: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a mark-up language that enables Web designers to create their own customized tags to provide functionality not available with HTML alone.

XML is a language of data structure and exchange, and allows developers to separate form from content.

With XML, the same content can be formatted for multiple applications.

In May 1999, the W3 Consortium announced that HTML 4.0 has been recast as an XML application called XHTML.

This move is slowing having an impact on the future of both XML and HTML.

Ajax: Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. This langauge creates interactive Web applications.

Its premise is that it sends data to the browser behind the scenes, so that when it is time to view the information, it is already "there." Google Maps is an example of an Ajax-enabled application.

Another is SurfWax LookAhead, an RSS search tool that retrieves feeds as you type your query.

Real-Time Communication

Text, audio and video communication can occur in real time on the Web. This capability allows people to conference and collaborate in real time.

In general, the faster the Internet connection, the more successful the experience.

At its simplest, chat programs allow multiple users to type to each other in real time.

Internet Relay Chat and America Online's Instant Messenger are prime examples of this type of program.

The development of a messenging protocols is underway. Such a protocol would allow for the expansion of this capability throughout the Internet.

More enhanced real-time communication offers an audio and/or video component. CU-See Me is a sotware programs of this type.

Even more elaborate are programs that allow for true real-time collaboration.

Microsoft's NetMeeting and Netscape's Conference (available with Communicator) are good examples of this.

Featured collaboration tools include:

audio: conduct a telephone conversation on the Web
video: view your audience
file transfer: send files back and forth among participants
chat: type in real time
whiteboard: draw, mark up, and save images on a shared window or board
document/application sharing: view and use a program on another's desktop machine
collaborative Web browsing: visit Web pages together

Currently no standard exists that will work among all conferencing programs.

Using the SQL Language

SQL is the language for accessing databases.

If you want your web site to be able to store and retrieve data from a database, your web server should have access to a database-system that uses the SQL language..

SQL Server

Microsoft's SQL Server is one of the most popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.

SQL Server is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.

Oracle

Oracle is also a very popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.

Oracle is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.

Access

When a web site requires a simple database solution, Microsoft Access is a very popular option.

Access is not well suited for very high-traffic, and not as powerful as Oracle or SQL Server.

MySQL

MySQL is also a popular database software for web sites.

MySQL is an inexpensive alternative to the expensive Microsoft and Oracle solutions.

Hosting can be FREE, SHARED or DEDICATED.

A Brief History Of The Internet And Important Web Terms

The World Wide Web is a system of Internet servers that supports hypertext to access several Internet protocols on a single interface.

The World Wide Web is often abbreviated as the Web or WWW.

The World Wide Web was developed in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee of the European Particle Physics Lab (CERN) in Switzerland.

The initial purpose of the Web was to use networked hypertext to facilitate communication among its members, who were located in several countries.

Word was soon spread beyond CERN, and a rapid growth in the number of both developers and users ensued.

In addition to hypertext, the Web began to incorporate graphics, video, and sound.

The use of the Web has reached global proportions and has become a defining aspect of human culture in an amazingly short period of time.

Almost every protocol type available on the Internet is accessible on the Web.

Internet protocols are sets of rules that allow for intermachine (inter Computer) communication on the Internet.

The following is a sample of major protocols accessible on the Web:

E-mail (Simple Mail Transport Protocol or SMTP)

Distributes electronic messages and files to one or more electronic mailboxes

Telnet (Telnet Protocol)

Facilitates login to a computer host to execute commands

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

Transfers text or binary files between an FTP server and client

Usenet (Network News Transfer Protocol or NNTP)

Distributes Usenet news articles derived from topical discussions on newsgroups

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

Transmits hyptertext over networks. This is the protocol of the Web.

Many other protocols are available on the Web.

To name just one example, the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows users to place a telephone call over the Web.

The World Wide Web provides a single interface for accessing all these protocols.

This creates a convenient and user-friendly environment.

Once upon a time, it was necessary to be conversant in these protocols within separate, command-level environments.

The Web gathers these protocols together into a single system.

Because of this feature, and because of the Web's ability to work with multimedia and advanced programming languages, the Web is by far the most popular component of the Internet.

HYPERTEXT AND LINKS: THE MOTION OF THE WEB

The operation of the Web relies primarily on hypertext as its means of information retrieval. HyperText is a document containing words that connect to other documents.

These words are called links and are selectable by the user.

A single hypertext document can contain links to many documents. In the context of the Web, words or graphics may serve as links to other documents, images, video, and sound.

Links may or may not follow a logical path, as each connection is created by the author of the source document.

Overall, the Web contains a complex virtual web of connections among a vast number of documents, graphics, videos, and sounds.

Producing hypertext for the Web is accomplished by creating documents with a language called HyperText Markup Language, or HTML.

With HTML, tags are placed within the text to accomplish document formatting, visual features such as font size, italics and bold, and the creation of hypertext links.

Graphics may also be incorporated into an HTML document.

HTML is an evolving language, with new tags being added as each upgrade of the language is developed and released.

For example, visual formatting features are now often separated from the HTML document and placed into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

This has several advantages, including the fact that an external style sheet can centrally control the formatting of multiple documents.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), led by Web founder Tim Berners-Lee, coordinates the efforts of standardizing HTML.

The W3C now calls the language XHTML and considers it to be an application of the XML language standard.

PAGES ON THE WEB

The World Wide Web consists of files, called pages or Web pages, containing information and links to resources throughout the Internet.

Web pages can be created by user activity. For example, if you visit a Web search engine and enter keywords on the topic of your choice, a page will be created containing the results of your search.

In fact, a growing amount of information found on the Web today is served from databases, creating temporary Web pages "on the fly" in response to user queries.

Access to Web pages may be accomplished by:

Entering an Internet address and retrieving a page directly
Browsing through pages and selecting links to move from one page to another
Searching through subject directories linked to organized collections of Web pages
Entering a search statement at a search engine to retrieve pages on the topic of your choice