Article
About the Author
Kevin Yank
Kevin began developing for the Web in 1995 and is a highly respected technical author. He wrote Build your own Database Driven Website using PHP and MySQL, a practical step-by-step guide published by SitePoint, and he's co-author of the SitePoint Tech Times, a bi-weekly newsletter for technically-minded web developers. Kev believes that any good webmaster should have seen at least one episode of MacGyver.
Advanced Web Design: A Primer
Making a Web page is easy. Given a good software package, any beginner can create a Web site in less than a day... sometimes less than an hour! Given a little more time, your average computer user can probably pick up a good understanding of HTML too, giving added control over the look and design of the site.
What comes next, though? As soon as any fledgling Web author sets her sites beyond the limitations of modern HTML, she is faced with a daunting barrage of acronyms (CSS, ASP, PHP, and XML, to name a few) and advanced technologies (such as Dynamic HTML, JavaScript, Cold Fusion, and MySQL). How is one expected to make sense of it all?
In this article, I’ll attempt to do just that. I’ll begin this week by drawing a line between the two main categories of advanced Web technologies: client-side and server-side technologies. I’ll talk about what makes them different, and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Then I’ll take a stroll through the client-side technologies, providing a plain-English description of what each of them does and a couple of links to where you can learn more. Finally, I’ll do very much the same thing for each of the server-side technologies.
By the end of this article, you should have a better idea of how it all fits together. And hopefully, you’ll be equipped to decide for yourself what to learn next based on what any given technology can do for you.