Replying to Suggestion: Glossary Of Web-related Terms

The java and javascript ones are copied from answers dot com. Uh... http://www.answers.com

Java:

An object-oriented programming language designed to generate applications that can run on all hardware platforms, small, medium and large, without modification. Developed by Sun, Java has been promoted and geared heavily for the Web, both for public Web sites and intranets. Java was modeled after C++, and Java programs can be called from within HTML documents or launched stand alone. When a Java program called from a Web page runs on a user's machine, it is called a "Java applet." When it is run on a Web server, it is called a "servlet." When it runs as a stand-alone, non Web-based program on a user's machine, it is simply a "Java application."

Upon finding a Java applet, the Web browser invokes the Java Virtual Machine, which translates the bytecode into machine code and runs it. This means Java programs are not dependent on any specific hardware and will run in any computer with the Java Virtual Machine software.

Java is a full-blown programming language and is not intended for the casual programmer and certainly not the end user. JavaScript is a scripting language that uses a similar syntax to Java, but it is not compiled into bytecode. It remains in source code embedded within an HTML document and must be translated a line at a time into machine code by the JavaScript interpreter. JavaScript is very popular and is supported by all Web browsers. JavaScript has a more limited scope than Java and primarily deals with the elements on the Web page itself.

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java script:

A popular scripting language that is widely supported in Web browsers and other Web tools. It adds interactive functions to HTML pages, which are otherwise static, since HTML is a display language, not a programming language. JavaScript is easier to use than Java, but not as powerful and deals mainly with the elements on the Web page. On the client, JavaScript is maintained as source code embedded into an HTML page. On the server, it is compiled into bytecode (intermediate language), similar to Java programs.

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If you want to know the difference between Java and JavaScript, you can go here.

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PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

PHP began some time in 1994 when Rasmus Lerdorf put together a bunch of Perl scripts to track down who was looking at his resume. People saw his script and liked it, so he started publishing his script and named it PHP (Personal Home Page). Later, the developement of PHP was done by a group of people and it grew and grew, and the name Personal Home Page doesn't seem to fit it anymore. So they renamed it to Hypertext Preprocessor (Yeah, PHP definitely looks like the acronym for that...).

PHP is a server-sided scripting language, which means that it is parsed on the server where the file is located, then sent to the person requesting it. PHP can be embedded into html without the visitors knowing about it, because every line of PHP will be parsed and sent as html. PHP can be used for dynamic pages such as keeping track of visitors (The original purpose of PHP), members stuff and... stuff. But once it's sent to the person requesting it, it cannot affect that person's computer, unlike Java and JavaScript, which are... not-server-sided (client-sided?). PHP is cool.

Yeah, I'm not that clear about the CGI and Perl stuff. I'm going to learn it soon though.

I think you should clear CGI up a bit better, saying it's like a web version executable is slightly incorrect, as you can create binary files to be executed as CGI from other languages.

CGI is basically an addon extension for HTML that provides a scripting language interpretter that can perform many operations by what you feed it, allowing dynamic content to be generated in your HTML pages, by a number of programming languages, not just PERL which is probably the most common language used for this. You can use binary files from Python, C/C++ and that's just a few I can think of at the top of my head.

Basically if you look at it as a programming language is saying it's a Server Side language extension added to HTML to provide a means of dynamic content, very similar to PHP, they require an interpretter to process the commands.

CGI is the grounds (interface), the scripting language can be a multitude of languages, but PERL is the most common and probably the best for this means, but you can use other languages, just remember that.

Cheers,


MC

Cool buddy, nice Breefing.

Can u explain more other terms related to IT field.

Cheers
Arun

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

One of my favourite but unfortunate IT terms I use is NFG (No F@#$%king Good), used to mark equipment, components that are beyond repair.

A good place to get information on terms is http://webopedia.com/

Cheers,


MC

Cool buddy, nice Breefing.

Can u explain more other terms related to IT field.

Cheers
Arun

Some of these are copied.

ASP: Active Server Pages

A Web server technology from Microsoft that allows for the creation of dynamic, interactive sessions with the user. An ASP is a Web page that contains HTML and embedded programming code written in VBScript or Jscript. It was introduced with Version 3.0 of Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS). When IIS encounters an ASP page requested by the browser, it executes the embedded program. ASPs are Microsoft's alternative to CGI scripts and JavaServer Pages (JSPs), which allow Web pages to interact with databases and other programs. Third- party products add ASP capability to non-Microsoft Web servers. The Active Server Page technology is an ISAPI program and ASP documents use an .ASP extension.

ASP.NET (also ASP+) is an enhanced version of ASP for the .NET platform. It supports executable programs compiled from C#, C++ and other languages and is not backward compatible with regular ASP code. ASP.NET pages are always compiled rather than interpreted as are ASP pages. See CGI script, JSP and ISAPI.


Basically, it's a server-side scripting language like PHP

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CGI: Common Gateway Interface

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an important World Wide Web technology that enables a client web browser to request data from a program executed on the Web server. CGI specifies a standard for passing data between the client and the program.

Originally, CGI was invented by NCSA for the NCSA HTTPd web server in 1993. This web server used UNIX shell environment variables to store parameters passed from the web server execution environment before spawning the CGI program as a separate process.

The programming language Perl is well known as a language used for CGI, but one of the points of CGI is to be language-neutral. The Web server does not need to know anything about the language in question.

An example of a CGI program is the one implementing a wiki: you hand it the name of an entry, and it will retrieve the source of that entry's page (if one exists), transform it into HTML, and send the result back to the browser. Or tell it that you want to edit a page. All wiki operations are managed by this one program.

The way CGI works from the Web server's point of view is that certain locations (e.g. http://www.example.com/wiki.cgi) are defined to be served by a CGI program. Whenever a request to a matching URL is received, the corresponding program is called, with any data that the client sent as input. Output from the program is collected by the Web server, augmented with appropriate headers, and sent back to the client.

Because this technology generally requires a fresh copy of the program to be executed for every CGI request, the work load quickly overwhelmed many servers and more efficient and flexible technologies such as PHP, as well as more efficient versions of CGI to be created for other languages, were developed by 2000.


CGI is a bit like a web version of an exe program (that's what I feel), it can keep an open socket with the server even after it's loaded.

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Perl: Practical Extraction Report Language

A programming language written by Larry Wall that combines syntax from several Unix utilities and languages. Introduced in 1987, Perl is designed to handle a variety of system administrator functions and provides comprehensive string handling functions. It is widely used to write Web server programs for such tasks as automatically updating user accounts and newsgroup postings, processing removal requests, synchronizing databases and generating reports. Perl has also been adapted to non-Unix platforms.


I'm not sure about perl. I thought it was the same as CGI.

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Cron:

A Unix utility (Unix daemon) that executes commands in a crontab file at a specified time and date. Cron is used to schedule such functions as backup and maintenance procedures.


So, it's like a job that you can schedule for the computer to do everyday.

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I'll be posting more later. Now it's homework time.

Here's some web-related terms that I think belong in an on-site glossary for forum members and guests:

ASP
CGI
Cron
Perl
Java
Javascript
PHP
Python
SSI
SQL
FTP
URL

CSS
HTML
XHTML
DHTML
XML

W3C

These terms are probably just the tip of the iceberg. Now I'm not exactly a total computer newb but I'd be hard-pressed to give a clear, concise explanation of half of these terms. Would a considerable number of members benefit from seeing an on-site glossary of these and other web-related terms?