What programming languages are commonly used for creating webpages?

[jeff1evesque]

I actually moved my question to the computer programming section. But I have two general questions:

1. How do most people these days program webpages(sites)- XHTML, HTML, dreamweaver? What is PHP ?
2. Do most webpages today incorporate java, when do they utilize C or C++ instead of java?

Thanks,Jeffrey

 

[eys_physics]

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and the extended version XHTML are languages which are used on webpages (they descripe what is on the page, i.e. e.g. where the text (which) should be) and are understood by web browsers. So either HTML and XHTML are used on all pages displayed by a web browser. Sometimes these pages are automatically created by scripts.
Dreamweaver is on the other hand a software to create homepages. This program is used much by professionals. But in you only need an editor to create web pages (l use e.g. Bluefish and their are other freely available ones).
PHP is a script language (see e.g. http://www.php.net" ) which is used on a web server to create dynamical homepages, e.g. pages which are using information from databases.
Many pages are using so called java applets (but also JavaScript). The reason I guess why Java is used is because it is more portable. But PHP has many similarities with C.
I hope this information is helpful.

 

[harborsparrow]

These days, state of the art is to use XHTML (more strictly formed than plain HTML so that browsers can parse it more easily). XHTML tags are used to divide the information in the page in paragraphs and other logical sections.

Then use CSS to alter the cosmetic appearance of the different XHTML tags.

The above are for a "static" webpage that does not have to pull information from a database each time it is accessed.

For "dynamic" pages formed by polling a database, or for forms that the user fills out to send information to a database, etc., you'll need a programming language. PHP is a popular one that runs on both major types of web servers (Linux Apached and Windows IIS). PHP runs on the web server and dynamically creates an HTML (or XHTML) page when the browser sends a request to a URL that has a .php file extension.

Other server side programming languages such as Java or .NET require special characteristics on the web server itself.

The browser itself can also execute Javascript (also called ECMA script) locally without making a round-trip request to a web server.

 

[harborsparrow]

Few server side programs these days are written in C/C++. Instead, most are written in one of PHP, Java, Python or ASP.NET. The latter three are popular because they are object-oriented and it is easier to write "safe" programs that will not cause the web server to crash; it is not quite so easy to write "safe" server-side programs in C or C++.