Whats the most popular language for coding web pages at the moment?

Question

Hi, i wanting to get into programming, specifically for the internet. Whats a good base to start from. I do have prior knowledge of programing e.g.Labview for 4 years. Any answers greatly appreciated.

Stuart

Answer 1

All languages can be learnt easilly at www.w3schools.com (excellent tutorials and up to date).
TO DO:
1. HTML is mandatory (that's how the pages are made!)
2. Javascript for interaction. It is a bit crap, but unfortunately necessary. On the other hand, there are 1000's of javascript "snipets" on the web that you can pick up.
3. PhP: essential if you want anything efficient. The most widely used
4. MySQL: the most powerful database on the market.
5. Notebook! Learn to write your code clearly using notebook...
6. Photoshop: just to make nice images
7. Macromedia Flash: bit hard, but necessary if you want nice animations, videos and sound.
8. AJAX... Pretty complex. Makes your code 3 times as long (you need a java code, a php code and an Ajax code).
Not really necessary if you do simple things. Mandatory if you are to design "web 2.0" standards. It does not do anything special! All it does it avoid page refresh everytime you update something on your screen, so you have the "new look" of "full interactivity". Only on the market for the last two years, introduced by Yahoo and Google (Damn them!)

NOT to do:
1. ASP (active server pages): it is similar to PhP, but contains huge amount of bugs and belongs to Microsoft.
2. JSP (java server pages): again a MS product full of bugs.
3. ASP.NET (an attempt at being better by MS, unsuccessful)
With these 3 "languages", you will be dependant on MS for everything. When your DB grows, you will be obliged to buy many "add-ons", (that are FREE with PhP), and renew licence fees on a regular basis.
4. NO front end editors (i.e. Dreamweaver). You need a long time to learn them, and all they do is writing the code for you in a way you can't maintain nor understand. In the time it takes to learn them, you will have learnt all the other languages.
5. NO off-the-shelf e-commerce. They are costly and over complicated. Write your code yourself. Faster, more efficient and personalised (taylored to your needs)

Good luck!

Answer 2

You should use HTML for creating the content of the page.

Once you've got the HTML in place you can use CSS for styling it, this helps to keep the styling separate so that you can easily make changes. Imagine having 100's of pages and deciding you want to change the colours of all the headings? If this styling is in your HTML you'd have to change it on all these pages but using CSS you only need to make presentational changes in one place.

Then use JavaScript for enhancing behavior. Remember though that not all users have JavaScript so it should never be used for critical functionality as some people will be unable to use your site.

Then, have a look at something like PHP in collaboration with a MySQL database as this will make the management of a site much easier.

Answer 3

If you have prior programming experience, you should pick up html very quickly, it is a very simple markup language. This goes hand in hand with css, which is used to style html, again, very easy, just run through the tutorials at w3schools.com. For functionality, you may want to learn php, or ruby on rails is becoming very popular. These are server-side languages, so you will need a localhost to develop on your computer, do a search for WAMP and download one of the packages. These come bundled with apache(the server) php(the scripting language) and mysql(database) that will run on your local computer.

Answer 4

My ratings..
1) Php +Mysql is lethal skill that can make your web designing business a great cleavage
most important part is they are free to use n can readily be hosted on any shared linux based webhosting server like Godaddy n many othrs
you can use best php designing sftwr for free like
phpnuke,wyzsig

2) Jsp/servelet +mysql/msql/oracle

best way to get you full fledged web application .If you develop a knack on these you gonna benifit the most
see websites like
http://www.rentacoder.com/
http://www.getafreelancer.com/

they need java-jsp skills the most.
Again hosting is easy with just free apache server and linux.

3) Ms.Net with msql/oracle can be very useful too
If someone hire you for that you will defeinetly been paid high for that.


Ofcourse........
Knowledge of Html+javascript+flash Or AJAX will be prerequisite.
according to pcmagzine n others review they said AJAX is next hot thing to happen.


Hope this will solve your issues
Goodluck & Cheers:)

Answer 5

most popular these days for programming is probably php
http://php.net
http://www.w3schools.com/php/

HTML is a necessity no matter what scripting language you use.
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

javascript is pretty much necessary as well.
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp