|
ASP (Active Server Pages) can be written in a number
of languages and is therefore not a language in of itself.
ASP was developed by Microsoft Windows and is proprietary.
This is a disadvantage, for it is limited to Windows platforms
and servers.
The correct choice for this project
The choice for this project was PHP. This is due to its relative
stability and speed when compared with ASP, and its simplicity
when compared with Perl.
Client Side
Client side languages are executed on the user's browser
and are not run from the server. The aspects of the client
side that will be discussed are: JavaScript, VBScript, Cascading
Style Sheets, HTML and XHTML.
JavaScript, developed by Netscape, and VBScript,
developed Microsoft were initially created to solve the problem
of frustratingly slow interactive web pages. It is common
to use JavaScript to perform such tasks as verifying data
and displaying new browser windows. JavaScript is however
the only scripting language that is able to run on nearly
all browsers. It is therefore more appropriate for public
use than VBScript.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were developed in 1994
by CERN to fulfil author requests for stylistic control beyond
HTML. CSS has improved web development enormously, for before
CSS web developers had to make pictures of text and buttons
to generate an attractive Web page. This would hinder network
performance, leading to slower download times. CSS has therefore
been a leading factor in improving network performance. CSS
is also beneficial for disabled users, for a speech synthesizer
that is designed for blind users is able to read CSS and HTML
but is unable to read pictures. If a link were depicted in
picture format, the blind user would not be aware of its existence.
One of the biggest advantages with CSS is that it allows
multiple style sheets for the same document and allows the
developer to link one style sheets to many documents. This
means that the same feature can contain the same font and
attributes and if the developer wishes to change those attributes,
they only need to change one file. It however has a major
disadvantage, for CSS does not degrade gracefully if a browser
does not support it.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) was created to
give semantic meaning to the text documents produced for the
World Wide Web. XHTML (EXtensible HyperText Markup Language)
is an official W3C Recommendation and is aimed to replace
HTML, for it is a stricter and cleaner version of HTML. Syntax
that violates HTML rules would still work in all browsers
but may not work in the many technologies that currently access
the World Wide Web, such as mobile phones and hand held PCs.
XHTML is a combination of HTML and XML and contains the positive
attributes of HTML with respect to the world wide web and
XML with respect to the fact that pages can be read by XML
devices. It therefore facilitates correct syntax and compatibility
throughout the Internet.
CSS, XHTML and JavaScript were therefore chosen as client
side technologies for the project.
|