development languages for websites

0. Introduction

0.1 Introduction

In this report I will aim to identify the different types of development languages for websites. I will aim to give a unbiased view of what is the best development language for each use and I will discuss the issues with compatibility and standards in the web.
I aim to discuss the differences between server-side languages and client-side languages and also the differences between active scripts and static pages. This report is only a rough guide to development languages and if you wish to do further research into this area, see 5.1 Additional Reading.

1. Development Languages For Websites

1.1 Internet And WWW

Only a small time ago, there used to be only a few ways you could get a website on the Internet. Even then, no one would see it, because no-one had access to the Internet. Now though, the Internet is the biggest means of communication in the world.

Quote q1.1.1 (Internet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , 8 November 2005) "During the 1950s, several communications researchers realized that there was a need to allow general communication between users of various computers and communications networks."

Quote q1.1.2 Kurose & Ross 2005 p. 1 "From Web browsers in cellular telephones to cafes with public wireless Internet access, from home networks with high-speed broadband access to traditional work-place IT infrastructure with a networked PC on every desk, to networked cars, to networked environmental sensors, to the interplanetary Internet-just as it seems that computer networks are ubiquitous, exciting new applications are developed that extend the reach of today's networks even further..."

After this, came a wave of people trying to improve the Internet and then the WWW (World Wide Web or Web) was born. The difference between the WWW and the Internet is that, the Internet is a network of networks and is the whole group of computers that make up the Internet. The WWW is a way of accessing a certain type of media over the Internet, usually through http. There are also a very large amount of different uses for the Internet, but in this report we will be looking at the WWW.

1.2 The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is used mainly for transmitting Websites and webpages over the Internet; it also carries images, sound and some video over the Internet. The differences between a website and a webpage, is that a webpage is only one file and has no other files attached to it. Whereas a website has multiple file sand pages no it. It also has links to other websites, in a different domain . We will be focusing of the languages used to create the Websites on the WWW. One-way of writing for a website, is to put all of you text into a text file. Then when a browser accesses this text file, the server will send the whole text file to the client. This will be in raw text format , with no underlining, bold or italics. If you wanted to format your text, then you would have to use a language that a browser will see and will process to show the right format to the user.
A very widely used language is called HTML (Hyper-text Markup Language). When a browser receives some HTML, it will process it in a certain way. For example if the browser saw:

Code c1.2.1 <b>hello</b>world

Then the browser would output the following to the user:

helloworld

This is because the browser sees the < and > as tags and will process them differently than if it were in a text file. This is where a problem occurs though, if one browser wants to process a <blink> tag differently to another browser. This happens with Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Browser. As Microsoft Internet Explorer does not allow the tag to perform what is does, i.e. makes the text flash on and off, but Netscape Browser does let the tag blink.
Other applications have this problem too, like a search engine crawler would look at a meta tag differently to a browser, as search engines will look for keywords in the website to index it on the search engine .
This problem has come about because there are many different browsers on the Internet and each one has different functions. Some examples of these browsers are: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Browser and Mozilla Firefox. Each one of these browsers will process formatting in a different way. This is where the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium ) comes in. The W3C has set standards for the code that people write.

Quote q1.2.2 (World Wide Web Consortium, 10 November 2005) "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines , software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential."

There are many more stories where people have fought to have standards in websites but failed, due to the developers of the device/browser either ignoring the need for them or not knowing what to do.

Quote q1.2.3 (Web Standards Project, September 24 , 2005) "As we expand our horizons from desktop to wireless, browser support isnâ€™t going to get easier. In fact, anyone who has done wireless development already knows cross-device and wireless agent development is much more insane than anything we deal with on the desktop."

_{q1.2.4 World Wide Web Consortium logo [image], 2005}

This is another problem that web standards face, the hardware compatibility issues , as many of the devices connected to the Internet now are wireless they have many different hardware specifications.

1.3 Standards For The World Wide Web

The W3C has developed guidelines so that there is a certain way the people should write the language for a website. This is for many reasons, but the main one is for accessibility. If there were a program that read out the text from a website for a blind person. Then when it got to a piece of formatting that it did not understand, because the author wrote it for a certain browser, then it would fail. This is one of the main reasons for a specification of each language being written and making the languages accessible.

1.4 Formatting And Scripts

The difference between formatting and scripts is that with formatting, for example HTML the browser will only display different colors, fonts and images ect. But with a scripting language like Java Script the browser can use variables to show the time, make the text a different color and move an image around the screen.

Quote q1.4.1 (JavaScript Tutorial, n.d.) "JavaScript is the scripting language of the Web!
JavaScript is used in millions of Web pages to improve the design, validate forms, detect browsers, create cookies, and much more.
JavaScript is the most popular scripting language on the internet."

There is allot of controversy over weather scripts should be in webpages. This is because it makes it very much harder for the browsers and the W3C ect. to make standards for the languages , if the content of them keeps changing. It also makes it harder for the web crawlers and search engines to search the internet too. All of these applications use the standards of HTML and XHTML ect. to gather information.

1.5 Server-side And Client-side

Quote q1.5.1 (Viewable with Any Browser: Accessible Site Design Guide, September
28, 2004) "Server side plugins and scripts allow you to embed macros, variables, and dynamic information in your HTML pages that will be evaluated as the pages are being served to your visitors. The advantages of this approach are that you can use dynamic information on your pages, such as the current time, the browser the visitor is using, etc., and that there is only one verison of your pages to maintain. The disadvantages are that you need to have support on your server for the script or plugin you are using , there can be security problems with software of this type, and the additional processing the server must do can slow the loading of your pages."

There are two main types of language that a website can be created in, one is built to serve client-side browsers and the other is built to be processed on the server and then sent to the client as a webpage. A client-side language is where the language is meant to run on the clientâ€™s machine. Examples of these are: HTML, XHTML, XML and JavaScript . Some examples of server-side languages are: PHP, ASP and PERL.

The differences between client-side and server-side is that the user of the client machine never gets to see the server-side language. As it is processed into client-side language before it leaves the server. Server-side languages often use databases to hold information on the website and will display it differently to if the page were static. The advantages of server-side is that you can enter the information that you would like to display for a website, without having to put a different static page up for every different entry. You can just enter it into a database and when a user comes to look at the website, they will see the correct entry. Whereas if you had a static page then you would have to copy a template of the page and enter the information into that page.

The advantages of static pages is that you do not have the complexity of server-side scripts. You do not have to deal with databases and variables. You just put the content in and format it.

See 5.1 Additional Reading for more information on server-side languages and client-side.

Overall the uses of the webpages and websites on the Internet vary, so the languages that are written to support these uses vary too. This is why there is much confusion over the standards of the web and compatibility.

2. Development Languages For Websites

2.1 Conclusion

The Internet has a broad and diverse range of communication media, so it is easy to get compatibility problems with information of the Internet and standards are needed to keep the Internet as accessible as it should be.
The Internet should be accessible to everyone and to do this, the authors of websites should adhere to the standards of the w3C. This will make it easier for people to access the WWW and its information .

3. Bibliography

3.1 Refrences

All logos, trademarks, are copyright of their respective owners.

3.2 Books

q1.1.2James F. Kurose & Keith W. Ross
Computer Networking, a top-down approach featuring the internet 2005 p. 1

3.3 Electronic Meida

q1.1.1Internet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Retrieved 7th November 2005 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

q1.2.2World Wide Web Consortium
Retrieved 9th November 2005 from
http://www.w3.org/

q1.2.3Web Standards Project
Retrieved 9th November 2005 from
http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_09.html

q1.4.1JavaScript Tutorial, n.d.
Retrieved 11th November 2005 from
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

q1.5.1Viewable with Any Browser: Accessible Site Design Guide
Retrieved 11th November 2005 from
http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/abtools.html

3.4 Images

q1.2.4World Wide Web Consortium logo [image] 2005
Retrieved 11th November 2005 from
http://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_home

4. Glossary

4.1 Glossary

The following is a short list and breif description of all of the key terms used in the report:
http: Hyper-text transfer protocol. A protocol used on the Internet to send and recieve web based traffic and media.

server: A server is a computer on the Internet to send information to clients on the Internet .

clients: A client is a computer on the Internet the requests information from servers ont he Internet.

tags: Tags are a special way of formatting text so that a vrowser will make it appear corrctly on the screen of the users browser.

W3C: W3C World Wide Web Consortium, a group of people that devise standards for langauges on the web.

HTML: HTML Hyper-text Markup Language, a language widely used on the internet.

JavaScript: An active script/language that is used on client computers.

client-side: A script/language that runs on the clients computer.

server-side: A script/language that runs on the servers computer.

XHTML: XHTML Extensible Hyper-text Markup Language, a dynamic langauge used on the Internet .

XML: XML Extensible Markup Language, a lanuage usually used for news feed/syndication.

PHP: PHP Pre-hypertext processor, a server-side langauge that is open-source and very good, it is usually used with mySQL (my Structured Query Language) wich is an open-source database.

ASP: ASP Active Server Pages, a language like PHP, but not open-source.

PERL: PERL a server-side language, like PHP.

5. Additional Reading

5.1 Additional Reading

For information on scripting languages:

http://www.php.net
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/server-side-language-right

For information on static languages:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

For information on web standards:

http://www.w3.org/
http://www.webstandards.org/