As we wind down the course in Web Design 101, some attention should be paid to scripting languages. Scripts are nothing more than programming code (software) that allows Web pages to become both more interactive as well as dynamic. Though it really isn’t necessary for most IMers to learn much if any scripting, it’s still a pretty good idea to get an appreciation of the power they possess and in what circumstances you might want to employ scripts.
The first order of business is to distinguish between the two types of scripts:
- Server-side scripts
- Client-side scripts
I’ve just begun dabbling in learning how to write PHP code for some projects I’ve undertaken over at Earn1kaDay.com. I’ve been programming in one programming language or another for the past 20 years or so. My most recent experience has been writing Windows client programs in Visual C++. I’ve also done some server-side programming in ASP, JSP, and Perl. So making the transition to PHP hasn’t been too much of a programming culture shock.
At least at first blush.
For about the past 2 years I’ve used Nvu exclusively to create and edit web pages. For those of you who don’t know what Nvu is, it’s a full-featured WSIWYG (”What You See Is What You Get”) HTML editor. The really great thing about Nvu is that it’s an open source project and is very generously offered free of charge.
Unfortunately, being an open source project also has probably prevented Nvu from achieving its full potential.
