Why is there more than one web scripting language?

Question

I know of several web scripting languages:

html

CSS

javascript

PHP

PERL

Ajax

asp

VBScript

SQL

XML

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actionscript (flash)

So I have 2 parts to my question. I don't care how you squeeze each part into your answer, but here they are:

1. Why are there so many?

2. What does each of them do?

What is each one useful for?

What is each one not good at?

This is probably information that I could find by doing a Google search, but I will not find a place where the answer to my question is in one place. It's not that looking is too hard; it's that I am not as experienced as you and my brain will not understand the answer even if I see it unless it is here. Does that make sense?

However, if you want to give me links to isolated information or copy-paste it here in your answer, that would be fine. You just have to answer each part of the question and help me understand it to get best answer. :D

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Edit:

Actually the comments are posted using Ajax, and it is quite obvious come to think of it. I just wasn't paying attention when submitting comments.

A search in the source for "XMLHttpRequest" reaveals it.

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Almost each language mentioned here has its own place in web development, however there are cases where you need to make a choice, I.E. Between ASP and PHP, or between MySQL  and Microsofts access database. PHP and MySQL has the advantage of beeing free, so this would be a obvious choice.

Asking why there are so many, would produce the same answer as asking why there are so many gas stations, and somtimes right next to eachother. Some of these languages are competitors, their creators are likely trying to profit from them in some way.

You wont get much of a response as of what ASP.NET is good at compared to PHP. They are both good at creating dymanic websites. And the same goes for the many databases, however PHP and MySQL remains as a good choice, and the best is that they are supported on most hosts these days. To compare them would require extensive research into speed differances and stability, something which is unlikely to happen.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is a markup language used to markup text, while CSS is used to layout pages. It is easier to think of them as being "one" these days, and it is worth to note that CSS has made it easier, not harder to create and maintain a website.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a markup language used to easily transfer data between applications, I.E. news and articles, cross domains/websites. This has allowed  web designers to create XML files dynamically using a language such as PHP, to easily transfer data between their applications. Many applications use XML, its not only used in web development.

Another example of XML based Languages would be RSS and Atom, which are feeds used to publish articles, news, and/or to create sitemaps for a website, which can help the search engine crawlers when indexing your site, it dose however not guarantee that all your pages will be indexed.

In XML you dont have predefined elements like you do in HTML. In XML you create your own elements. See also: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/98/10/guide0.ht... - A Technical Introduction to XML

XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) is a child language of XML meaning it is build on top of the XML standard, and is very similer to HTML, most tags are the same, however in XHTML you are required to "close" tags which wouldn't normally be closed, such as the meta and br tag. The differance is minimal, any properly coded HTML page, can easily be "converted" to XHTML.

XHTML is also suposed to be served with the "application/xhtml+xml" mimetype, instead of "text/html", this means if you have coding errors, the browser will show an error rather then the page. Some browsers do however not support this mimetype, and won't render the page when its used. Any properly configured web server will serve the page as "text/html" for those browsers, see also: http://www.w3.org/2003/01/xhtml-mimetype...

JavaScript is a client side scripting language, which means that it is executed in the browser on your computer when you visit a website rather then on the server. Somtimes JavaScript can be used to reduce the load on the server, by doing some operations on the client side, which would be secure enough to let the client handle.

AJAX is the same as JavaScript, it is more a term used to describe the use of JavaScript togetter with XML, and the use of XMLHttpRequest, this can enhance a website by changing the content of a page I.E. without refreshing. Or it can be used to check for the aviavibility of a username doing registration.

PHP is a Server Side scripting language, which means that it is executed on the server, before the page is displayed. It is used to preprocess data such as text, images, and other files. PHP can be used to create dynamic websites.

PERL is another Serverside Language older then PHP, you can think of them as competitors.

Dynamic websites is used to describe sites which has content that may change under certain conditions, some of which include, a user submitting a comment, new articles gets added, or something gets deleted.

ASP (active server pages), is microsofts bet on a serverside scripting language, also used to create Dynamic websites. But generally what can be done with asp, can also be done with PHP.

SQL (Structured Query Language ) is used to access and manipulate databases. I.E. http://php.net/function.mysql-query - PHP: mysql_query

MySQL is a free open source database, which can be accessed by "queries" in almost any server side language, such as ASP.NET or PHP.

Actionscript is a very easy to learn scripting language, used inside flash files, to create objects such as preloaders for websites, or even players to play videos.

Finally SEO Stands for Search engine optimizing, and is not a programming language. This include techniques to improve your placement in the search engines, such as link building, keyword optimizing, and coding structure as well as content structure improvements on your page.

Unlike what some SEO companies think, search engines do not treat the em and strong tags any different from the less meaningfull b and i tag. Strong and b is exactly the same, see also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...

Answer 2

First of all, as many other have pointed out: only 5 of the languages you mentioned can be considered web scripting languages.  So there aren't as many as you suggested.  Since many people have already responded to your question, I'm going to focus on the first one, answering in a way that no-one has (up to the point I started my answer).

Why are there so many?

JavaScript and VBScript are competing products by Sun and Microsoft, respectively.  I guess you could say they were developed out of competition.  PHP I know was developed by a guy who simply felt the need to write server side scripting language.  I think that's the main answer to your question: people develop computer languages just for the heck of it, just because they can.  I think it has little to do with strengths and weaknesses of existing languages.

Answer 3

If you're not a programmer or a designer, what difference do any of them make. They all have there moments in web technology. Design, Development, Structure, Networking, Marketing, Markup......

Go read!

Answer 4

Those aren't all scripting languages.

You can find the answers in 1 place. To find a brief description of each, go to http://www.webopedia.com/

There are different types becuase (1) Different languages have different strengths and (2) Because the Web isn't one single entity.  

You might want to start at a lower level - check the history of the Internet.

SQL is a method of accessing relational databases.  

CSS displays styles / visual information.

XML is for handling data.

HTML sends instructions to browsers (at about how to display data). Could be static or could be generated from scripting languages or from compiled languages.  Those languages could use SQL to access the data and XML to structure it.  

ASP is dead, replaced by ASP.NET (an Object Oriented framework, akin to Java but not limited to a single language).

Answer 5

There are so many because they have different purposes and some languages work better for different purposes (eg. more efficient, easier to use, or whether its even possible).

Programming is also evolving so that more languages spring up to handle tasks that couldn't be handled before.

html is for designing the static layout of a website

css is for styling the content of your website

php is for creating dynamic content

javascript is for adding dynamic and animated content to a website

perl is a scripting language

Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML it helps improve interactivity

asp is for creating web applications and dynamic websites

vbscript is a scripting language for creating various applications

sql is a database language

xml language to display content eg. feeds

SEO is search engine optimization and basically means improving your website content to rank better on a search engine for a specific keyword

Actionscript is a programming language for flash to make it useful for various purposes

Thats a quick, basic overview. There are thousands of uses for each language. If you think you know which ones you might be interested in using you could buy a book for one.

If you are starting out the web development the best ones to learn are html and css then php.