Sunday 7 August 2016

Programming languages for web-site setup

Programming languages for website setup

Image source - Wikipedia

Following is a step by step guide on programming languages for setting up a website

There are two main types of websites you may deal with.

1. Static website

This type of website is generally to display some information. It does not do much of, or in fact, any of logic. A good example is a website such as wikipedia.org. It does not take much of inputs from user other than search string. This type of website is suggested to start with, since it helps to master the basics of setting up website before handling complexities.

2. Dynamic website

This type of website is generally to have higher level of user interaction. It takes inputs from users and displays information back to user and then it further does logic and calculations such as total amount. A good example is a website such as amazon.com. It not only take inputs from user such as search string to display products, but it also adds up items in basket and shows the total amount, takes input of delivery address and displays delivery date and so on. This type of website needs a database and other algorithms to be built and needs more intensive training before doing it right.

Following are the main programming skills you need to setup a website. They are not complicated, they are simple to learn and apply. I like to stress, they are 'simple', but that doesn't mean they are 'easy'. You need to invest time to learn them properly and apply. If you are prepared to rough it up and learn slowly, you can learn them FREE with multiple tutorials online. If you don't want to spend too much time in trial and error you can consider to learn them properly via an online course before applying in your project.


1. Front-end programming languages

This has two parts. First part is about the "basic content formatting" and display.
Since the beginning, front end programming has been standardized with Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). All the browsers are built to recognize the programming tags and standards defined by this programming language, so that they parse and display accordingly. The latest version of this language is HTML version 5 or HTML5. Please remember, not all browsers recognize all HTML tags. You will learn the differences as you start programming with HTML/HTML5. Another component of front end programming is, 'dynamic controls' without refresh. Typically Javascript is used for this purpose. JQuery is used in places such as Facebook like count (for example, as soon as you click like, count is increased without refreshing the page).

Second part is about "styling" the contents to make them appear very nice and attractive to the users.
This is called as 'styling'. Styling has been standardized lucky as well with one uniform programming language called as Cascaded Style Sheet or CSS. This has a set of style-coding instructions which can be referred to in HTML code for beautiful displays. The commonly adapted version of CSS language is CSS3. Please note that, it is "NOT" mandatory to use style sheets or create separate CSS file. However, you will appreciate the benefits of CSS when you start dealing with bigger, more complicated websites. To begin with, you can apply styling elements "within" the HTML code. This webpage you are reading, itself is an example for using some of the aspects of HTML and CSS without any backend programming. I've applied mostly by learning them via online.

2. Back-end programming languages

Backend programming is needed to do logic, calculations, im-promptu displays, page shifts and so on. They also deal with different Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) typed in by users in the web-browsers and send the request to a webserver to decide what to respond back. For example, try this simple test. Try to type in http://www.sfsu.edu/ and you will get a nice webpage. Now type http://www.sfsu.edu/test then still you will get a nice webpage with cleanly formatted 'Page not found' error. These cannot be controlled by HTML/CSS. These are controlled again by backend programming. The most prominent ones are given below.

2a).Python-Django- This has been in existence since 1991 and it is commended for programmer-friendly coding practices.

2b).C/C++ has been around since 1972/1983 and it is a very successful, widely used programming language.

2c).PHP- Short form for Personal Home Page/Hypertext Preprocessor has been around since 1995 and it is a famous language for programming.

2d).ASP.NET - Active server pages of Windows is a go-to webprogramming lanugage especially for windows-lovers and simplicity seeks. You know what I mean, Windows is known for bringing simplicity to users, whether it was from DOS prompt to WINDOWS interface or anything later on.

2e. There is a great number of Ruby on Rails lovers in this world. They just love it because, it overcame some of the deficiencies in Java. It has been around since 2005

2f).Java-finally, so called the king of the languages for its time developed and released by Sun Microsystems and now being given a run by other languages such as Ruby, Python and others, is a dependenable language for backend programming.

2g).Others-There are a few others such as PERL, Scala, Go, Hack, Erlang,etc which you can explore if interested

3. Back-end database

Third component that you will need for a website is a database to store and retrieve data. There are multiple options available, though the most common ones are Oracle MYSQL, Microsoft SQLserver, SQLite and PostgreSQL. There are a few others such as HBase, Cassandra, MariaDB and Redis. I've used MySQL, SQLserver and SQLite and they are reliable.

4. Webserver

This component depends on how you are hosting your website. For example, if you are hosting within an office environment, then you need to take care of this part yourself. You need to learn a webserver programming and installation such as Nginx, Microsoft IIS, Apache-Tomcat or anyother equivalent software. However, if you are hosting from a web-host, they usually take care of this part and you need not worry about this. I've hosted a webapplication both inside office (using all three Nginx, IIS, Apache tomcat) as well as hosted with a provider without worrying about this part.

Hope this blog was useful to you for learning some fundamentals of webprogramming. I conduct step by step coaching and guidance for website setup. If you want to save time and setup a website quickly starting from domain registration until it is up and running, you can subscribe with your email to receive FREE website setup tips and also leave a comment below showing your interest.

Subscribe to our mailing list for FREE website development tips

* indicates required

No comments:

Post a Comment