Você está na página 1de 7

11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.

com

JonathanMcCarver.com

Programming Languages for the Internet


Posted on August 18, 2011

These aren’t all programming languages and this list doesn’t have every web programming
language possible on it but this is generally (in no particular order) what you will encounter in
the world of web design, development, programming, or whatever else you want to call making
things online. This list is more like what you’d see in a job description or on a resume as
opposed to purely being a list of programming languages. So here are the languages we will
cover:

html
php
asp .net
javascript
css
java
python
actionscript
ruby
sql
ajax

HTML
http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML
Type: A markup language, not a programming language.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is what websites are made of. When you view the source
of a webpage you are seeing html. It is structured as an xml document which means that it’s
easy for a person to read and understand. If you are going to do anything on the internet then
you need to at least gain a basic understanding of html. The best beginning place for this (and
almost any web technology) is the W3 Schools website. While it doesn’t delve deeply into them
this resource will start you off on the right path with all of the basic web technologies and it is
made and maintained by the same group that develops the web standards so you can be sure
the instruction is up to date and reflects good practices.

PHP

http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 1/7
11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com

http://www.php.net/
Type: Server side interpreted, scripting, language (not compiled)
PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a language that can be interspersed into html code. You
will find there are also many pure php files for frameworks and libraries. In an html file with php
in it you can use special tags to change into the php language mode. The commands you then
write allow the manipulation of the page before it is delivered to the user and displayed in the
browser. The before part is important because once someone is viewing the page php scripts
are finished running and will not resume until the user makes another request. That is how all
of the server side languages we will cover operate.

Php is a good language for a beginning web developer to learn because it is easy to
understand and start with but it is also useful in the job market. Many very big and noteworthy
sites and pieces of software are developed in php like WordPress (which this site uses),
Facebook, and the MediaWiki engine that powers Wikipedia.

ASP.net
http://www.asp.net/
Type: Server side interpreted, scripting, language (not compiled)
ASP (Active Server Pages) is a language in the Microsoft .net suite of programming languages.
Its syntax and its capabilities are similar to php with the primary difference being that ASP runs
on a windows server and not on anything else. Advanced users will find more differences
because ASP has a rather unique feature of letting you change languages. By default you are
going to be writing VBScript but you can use special features of the language to change it to
JScript or several other syntax types.

Javascript
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
Type: Client side script language
Javascript is the only language embedded in all web browsers. It allows a huge number of the
“web 2.0″ features we’ve all become comfortable with such as animated menus, dynamic
content, user behavior tracking, context sensitive inserts (ads) and many many more things.

Javascript is a client side programming language which means that after the page has loaded
on a users (clients) device the javascript runs there, on their computer, as part of the web page.
This can be confusing to a new web developer trying to make their server side language (such
as php) talk to javascript or vice versa. The confusion is because the two languages never run
at the same time. Your php runs on the server and delivers the webpage, then your javascript
runs on that page. The two can communicate but it happens much differently and is covered at
the end of this article.

Users can disable javascript but that has become so rare that it’s barely a concern anymore
since you can scarcely navigate today’s internet without javascript turned on.

CSS
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 2/7
11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com

Type: Not a programming language. Adds visual description to html.


CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can be considered part of html, it can be used in an html
document or written in its own file to be included to an html doc later. Css exists to give style,
visual description of how things should look and be placed, to the elements of an html
document. These properties used to be integrated into the writing of html code but they
became separated as coders realized they were having to write repetitive code and make
changes in too many places. Now pages of a whole website can be written with no styles and
all include the same css file. This means changes to fonts, colors and backgrounds can be
made in one place. This also has allowed web development to follow the concepts of MVC
(Model View Controller) design which is outside the scope of this article but a very important
part of designing good software and good interfaces.

Java
http://www.java.com/en/
Type: Server side compiled language using a virtual machine.
Java was developed by Sun Microsystems which has since been incorporated into Oracle. It is
similar in many ways to C++ but it’s primary goal was to be totally platform agnostic meaning it
can run on anything anywhere. It is not only object oriented but strictly operates in objects. You
can’t write java code without it being in an object. Unlike the script languages we’ve seen so far
java is compiled into bytecode before it can be run. This adds performance speed at the cost of
more overhead in development time and effort. Generally java is harder to understand use and
implement than script languages meaning you need higher level talent to program for it (it’s
more expensive). Java is not javascript, they are in no way connected in technology,
implementation or use. They only share similar names and nothing else and cannot be
used interchangeably.

Using java for web development means using a servlet class to process requests and
responses through a web server. This is only one of many ways the java language can be
used. Notable sites powered by java include Ebay and Amazon and it is widely regarded as
one of the best platforms for large scale collaborative enterprise level web work. Small shops
are not well served by developing in java because of its complexity and the difficulty and
expense of hiring capable developers.

Python
http://www.python.org/
Type: Server side interpreted, scripting, language (not compiled)
Python is a server side language that is unique in its attention to whitespace. In python you do
not have brackets. Instead code blocks are defined by indentation and lines are ended with
linebreaks and not a special character. While it can be used on its own python is only really
worth talking about as a web language in relation to the django framework. This is used to
power many newspaper sites as well as other projects and it is the basis of the ellington cms.

The django framework is a tool that helps do many common tasks for you. Namely it lets a
developer decide on how the data should be structured and stored and have database tables
and basic user interfaces to the data built automatically. It also handles users, profiles,
registration and cookies with built in tools.

http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 3/7
11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com

Actionscript
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript
Type: Compiled proprietary plugin language.
Actionscript is the programming language of flash. It has had three major iterations over the
years that are now referred to as actionscript 1 2 and 3. It is important, especially if you are
making advertisements, to know how to develop in actionscript 2 or 3. This is because many ad
networks only accept files that have been coded in actionscript 2 (because they are compatible
with older systems).

One key difference in actionscript 3 is the ability to compile a flash file outside of the flash
program using the free Flex SDK. Flex is another application of the actionscript language that
can be used to make desktop applications. The most well known of these is probably
Tweetdeck. Whatever you use it for actionscript is a pretty solid language for media. It is easy
to pull in videos, images, vector graphics and sound files and use them all dynamically. The
disadvantage to working in flash however is that users have to have the flash runtime installed
to see your content. On iOS devices like the ipod, iphone and ipad this is impossible (without
jailbreaking) meaning your audience is limited. It is expected by many that advances in
browsers and html5 media will make javascript fully replace actionscript.

Ruby
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
Type: Server side interpreted, scripting, language (not compiled)
Ruby is Japanese in origin and has no official specification. I personally have never written ruby
code and so I can’t speak as well on it as other languages but I am including it because of the
prominent use of ruby on rails. Rails as it is often called is a rapid development framework like
django is for python. In many ways rails is further along than django being that it has built in
javascript and ajax support and it can handle on the fly data structure manipulations that are
much harder in django. In the end both are good tools. This article shows more details on the
differences between the two.

SQL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL
Type: Not a programming language. Interface to relational databases.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is not a programming language or a markup language. It is
the standard interface used to move information in and out of databases, manipulate that data,
and generate reports and other information based on data. Sql isn’t the only way to use a
database but it is the most common way. MySql is the most widely used relational database
and is a good starting point to learn from as a web developer.

There is also a type of database now that does not use sql at all to avoid the overhead needed
to process every feature of the language. MongoDB is the leading example of this concept.

Ajax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28programming%29
Type: A method of using several languages in conjunction.

http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 4/7
11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com

Ajax (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is really just a concept. By smartly using javascript in
the browser to communicate with the server in the background and then change the page it is
possible for the user to send and recieve information without reloading the page. This is used
very very extensively today. Any in browser chat is ajax based, the gmail interface is all ajax,
facebook uses it extensively now for photos and chat. A good place to learn the basic concepts
of ajax is through the w3schools lessons.

That’s all for now. This is just the beginning if you want to be a web developer but I hope this is
useful information for the less technical people that need to communicate with developers too. I
know I’ve left things out. If you want to add anything please do. I am happy to incorporate more
information or modify my explanations if it seems necessary.

This entry was posted in Programming, Technology and tagged .net, actionscript, ajax,
asp, css, html, internet, java, javascript, php, python, ruby, sql, summary, web by
Jonathan McCarver. Bookmark the permalink
[http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/] .

7 THOUGHTS ON “PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES FOR THE INTERNET”

Pingback: Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com | Neorack


Tutorials

Dan Patrick
on August 19, 2011 at 9:53 am said:

Objective C for iOS mobile development? Pretty relevant to the web, if not an “internet
language.”

Jonathan McCarver
on August 19, 2011 at 10:10 am said:

It is very relevant to the current culture of where programming and development


is going but it isn’t an internet language at all. I talked about java but I didn’t
mention it’s ability to be used to develop android apps or it’s history as the
language for games and programs on phones before the smartphone market
emerged.

I cover these languages well in my earlier article “What’s an app?”


http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/whats-an-app/

If more people want it covered here I can add it but I don’t think it applies to
learning to code for the web. Objective C is actually a parallel to C++ and has
been the language for macintosh software for many years.

http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 5/7
11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com

Larissa
on June 9, 2012 at 1:59 pm said:

There isn’t any one particular lagugane that is more friendly than
another, it really depends upon the way you choose to use the one you
select.The thing to consider is this Search engines spider web sites and
they index the *static results* of the pages they vist So, if you are using
a server-side script to generate a page, the search engine will index the
resulting HTML, *not* the script that generated it.Depending upon what
you’re using the script to do, this can cause interesting indexing results,
especially if you’re depending upon user inputs to generate page
content.Again though, the choice of scripting lagugane is up to the
programmer and their comfort level. I personally recommend PHP,
simply because it’s open-source, very wide spread, and easy to use.

Dat Language Troll


on August 19, 2011 at 5:23 pm said:

HTML & CSS are not programming languages as they are not turing complete. They
have more in common with Word documents than other programming languages.

Jonathan McCarver
on August 20, 2011 at 5:21 pm said:

You are very correct. You may have noticed the the first 5 words of the first
sentence of the first paragraph are “These aren’t all programming languages…”.
Also in the descriptions of each of those I state that they are not programming
languages. It is odd that you didn’t mention ajax as it isn’t a language at all.
Markup, programming or otherwise.
To be honest I can’t blame you for reading the title and jumping strait to the list. I
wonder would it be better to call this web development languages?
Technologies? It all gets a bit muddled as there are so many aspects of the
internet and it’s technology.

daniel
http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 6/7
11/24/2017 Programming Languages for the Internet | JonathanMcCarver.com

on February 22, 2012 at 7:24 am said:

Cool blog!

http://www.jonathanmccarver.com/programming-languages-for-the-internet/ 7/7

Você também pode gostar