Beginner’s Guide to Web Development – Definitions

What is HTML? HTML or Hypertext Markup Language, is the language used to create pages on the world wide web, known as web pages. Web browsers parse HTML documents and display the contents of the documents based on a set of rules. HTML consists of many tags that describe these rules. The browsers perform actions based on the rules described by the tags. For example, the following is a simple line from an HTML document: <p>hello</p>. A browser would parse this line of code and create a paragraph, which is described by the <p></p> tag, containing the text hello.

What is Java™? Java, created by Sun Microsystems, is a high-level, object-oriented programming language similar in nature to its predessor, C++, and to a certain extent, C, the language from which C++ was derived. Java is a developer-friendly language, a stereotype applied to Java because of its automatic handling of many complex programming issues inherent in C and C++. Thus, developers have more time to concentrate on their programming, and consequently, Java's popularity has soared. Java has always been a favorite language for web developers. One reason for this are Java applets (see below). Another is because its the language powering such technology as JavaServer Pages (see below), which is one of the most popular technologies for creating dynamic web pages, and its superior networking capabilities to most, if not all, programming languages.

What are Java™Server Pages? JavaServer Pages, or JSP for short, is a server-side technology from Sun Microsystems that is quickly on its way to becoming the industry leader for creating dynamic web pages. JSP technology allows a web developer to use Java code in conjunction with HTML to accomplish such tasks as communicating with databases, performing complex mathematical operations, and reading and writing to files. Unlike some of its competitors like Active Server Pages (ASP) from Microsoft, JSP is not limited to a specific server platform.

What is JavaScript? Javascript, created by Netscape, is a scripting language that is commonly used in conjunction with HTML to create dynamic web pages. Javascript has the unique ability to interact with HTML source code, but has no built-in mechanism for communicating with a server. Thus, JavaScript is most often used as a client-side language to perform such tasks as HTML form validation, while server-side languages like JSP or ASP are used to facilitate server-side tasks. JavaScript's relatives include VBScript, or Visual Basic Scripting Edition, a language created by Microsoft.

What are Applets? An applet is a special type of Java program able to be lauched from a web page. The only requirement is that the browser interpreting the web page is a Java-enabled browser, which include most of the major browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Communicator, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. An applet can do almost anything that a typical Java program can do, but must conform to special security features, and as such has certain behavioral limitations. At present applets are commonly used to add functionality to web pages and are also a huge favorite among Internet game developers.