Language

[David]

Im going to be making a site, soon. What language do you think i should learn?

[Tuberload]

Im going to be making a site, soon. What language do you think i should learn?

HTML! Possibly PHP/JAVA? Those are my preferred CGI languages, but some might also suggest ASP(.NET). You could also use PERL if you like.

Addition: If you plan on becoming a professional web developer I would recommend ASP, or Java.

[MyndFyre]

Im going to be making a site, soon. What language do you think i should learn?

It really depends on what you want to do.  If you're just learning to learn, then I would go with a mix of HTML and JavaScript.  Remember -- they are for different things; HTML describes the format of some information, whereas Javascript (and other programming languages) manipulates the data or its format (appearance).

If you want to get into some hardcore stuff, I would recommend Java or ASP.NET.  The .NET Platform might be better if you want to transition into Windows user interface development, but now that I have a good feel for programming, I think I could handle the Java Swing (the visual user interface) platform too.

If you learn Javascript, that knowledge can be immediately applied to ASP.

[j0k3r]

I've been learning PHP for quite some time, and find it very useful. PHP also has a ton of pre-made sites for free (ex PHPNuke), and it very widely supported (which is good, because finding errors are a pain). Javascript seems to have capabilities to add nice features to sites too. I wouldn't know about java/asp(.net).

At very least, know HTML, and you can decide what language you want to learn from there.

[Grok]

If you are going to write static pages, you only need know XHTML and CSS.

If you are going to write dynamic pages, you may need either, or both of, a server-side and client-side technology.

On the client, the primary choice is JavaScript, which Microsoft labels JScript though it is very compatible if not 100%, with JavaScript.  There are other client-side (the browser is the client) extensions such as Netscape's, but they are not widely supported.  JavaScript is supported by all major market-share browsers.

On the server side, you have Java, the most portable choice.  Portable means you can take your website source code and install it on other web server brands (Apache, Tomcat, WebSphere, IIS, etc) and it should run without modification, or much modification.

Non-portable choices are also popular, if you always will be running your code on IIS, you can choose ASP, ASP.NET, from Microsoft, or a dozen other languages implemented for IIS.

For most choices, the language is not a limiting factor anymore.  Technology is layered such that languages themselves are somewhat portable these days.

[hismajesty]

HTML then PHP

[j0k3r]

As you can see it varies a bit, if you want to make a career out of it, I'd listen to Grok, if you just want to do stuff at home, I'd probably go with PHP.

[hismajesty]

Why can't you make a career out of PHP?

[j0k3r]

Why can't you make a career out of PHP?

I'm not necessarily saying you can't, but IT professionals are looking for ASP.NET I think, Grok would know. PHP just doesn't seem like the right language to make a career out of. I could be wrong though.

[MyndFyre]

For clarity as to what XHTML is (what Grok referenced), because if you haven't learned HTML yet, you might not know:

HTML is a set of tags that describe how a document is formatted.  For instance, if you want to make text bold, you can:

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This is my <b>bold</b> text.

Result:
This is my bold text.

There are some instances where you don't have to put the second tag -- the one that tells the client that you're done formatting something a specific way.  A few that come to mind are:

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<br>

<img src="http://www.mysite.com/myimg.jpg">

<li>List item 1
<li>List item 2


You can also specify the selected attribute for a Drop-down-list item without setting anything -- just add in "selected" and it will be.

With XML, you can use special tags similar to with HTML, except that the tags simply contain data, not format it.  Because it keeps data structured in a specific way, there are extra rules to follow -- such as all tags need to be closed, tag attributes (such as "selected") always have a value (even if it's just "true" or "false"), etc.

XHTML is a movement to apply XML rules to HTML, so that all of the benefits of data-reading and writing that work for XML can apply to HTML (this sounds obscure, but it's really a huge boon for web developers -- now that I've learned it, I know).  Aside from other bonuses, it is the most universally-compatible HTML to be found.  The above code could be done like this:

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<br></br> --or more commonly-- <br />

<img src="http://www.mysite.com/myimg.jpg"></img> --or more commonly-- <img src="..." />

<li>List item 1</li>
<li>List item 2</li>


Cheers

[Grok]

If XML's relationship to HTML is confusing, this might clear it up.

HTML used to be written in a "language descriptor" named SGML.  But SGML was really hard to learn or use by anyone.  So basically, nobody did.  Browser vendors did whatever they wanted with HTML and ignored all the rules that SGML imposed.

XML was created as a much simpler SGML, and with the simplicity came power.  Seems odd, but that's what happened.  The tool to write languages was now accessible to the mass public (programmers).  The mass public loved it and adopted it for all things markup!

HTML 4.01 "is written in" XML.  Remember XML is a language, too, not just an application itself.

After HTML was rewritten in XML, a lot of the "garbage" that browser vendors had added was marked for removal in the next version.  This removal is "deprecation" and you see that word a lot in 4.01.  All deprecated items are not available in the next version of HTML, which was XHTML 1.0.

XHTML 1.0 imposes the XML rules to make HTML good again, and some new features.  All the "eye candy" of HTML has been ripped out and moved into styles.  Those styles are written in a format called Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS.

CSS(1), CSS-P, CSS2, and CSS3 are the different versions.  Most popular GUI browsers have nearly full support for CSS-P, and a few have nearly full support for CSS2.

Why all this?  To make the web an information plethora, but available to all sorts of devices.  Not just PC monitors (screens), audio devices, tactile devices, printers, and others.  CSS2 gives the power to prepare HTML page content for different devices.

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

XML is so overused.

[Grok]

Just wait till you're in business and get into these massive time-wasting arguments over data formats for exchanging between sites.  XML instantly solves those problems and kills 99% of arguments, saving tons of money and increasing productivity.  Companies can concentrate on doing business, and not designing it all the time.

[MyndFyre]

Just wait till you're in business and get into these massive time-wasting arguments over data formats for exchanging between sites.  XML instantly solves those problems and kills 99% of arguments, saving tons of money and increasing productivity.  Companies can concentrate on doing business, and not designing it all the time.

My clan used XML in the most recent implementation of our website.  Here's the beginning snippet:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Rules xmlns="http://www.clan-aoa.org/Schemas/Rules.xsd">
  <Section SNum="1" Name="General">
    <Part Number="1" Name="Cheating">The Angels of Armageddon do not believe in cheating under any circumstances. That means that NO member of AoA will use cheats, or map hacks, or any other unsportman-like advantage during a game. This is the number ONE rule of AoA, if you do not think you can follow this rule, then there is no need to read further.</Part>
    <Part Number="2" Name="Conduct">The Angels of Armageddon treats other members of AoA FAIRLY, RESPECTFULLY, and BROTHERLY. This means that if you are in a game with any other AoA member there are no backstabbings, or any other unsportsman-like conduct towards another member</Part>
  </Section>
</Rules>


By simply iterating over the XML as if it is data (similarly to how XSLT works), I'm able to generate this page.

Now, the next time I create a website for my clan, I don't have to go through every little rule to make sure it's formatted correctly.  I can programattically iterate over each XML element, or apply XSLT to it, to generate the appropriate HTML/XHTML.

Cheers.

[Grok]

Both the navigation menu and the articles on vL main are stored in XML files.  ASP opens them as an ADODB Recordset to build the page elements.

The members list on members.asp is also an XML file containing a recordset.