Website code types?

[CEBenz]

Ok, I'm obviously not the same one with this question judging from looking around and search didn't get me anywhere. Hopefully, the answers here will be useful and maybe we can make a sticky out of it. The question is:

Since some of us are still a bit on the coding challenged side, how can we tell what types of coding (php, html, xhtml, mySQL, Oracle, Magento, etc....) are used on the sites that some of us are looking at for ideas?


Cheers
-Cameron

 

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[Anon3587x]

right click and go to "view page source" to get a better idea

 

[Inphinity]

You can usually tell by the page extension - .php .asp .aspx .cf .html .xml etc. SQL (all forms) is used for database queries, and you won't get a web page "coded" in SQL - though a server-side page such as php or asp may include SQL queries to a database to return the required result.

 

[healthstatus]

To add a little here,
.php, .cgi - Php or Perl websites usually on a Linux type server
.asp, .aspx - Microsofts answer to php and perl, always on a windows server
.cf - Coldfusion
.html - static web page
.xml - this is usually generated by php, perl, asp, aspx or cf

there are more, but this is really minutia.

there are ways to "fake" or manipulate the extension as well as remove it. So it is not always as it appears.

When you spec a website to be built, you can say things like: I want a dynamic website (programmer talk for pages that change, usually from a database) that runs on linux (or whatever your server company provides). Then let the programming community give you feedback as to what they feel the best programming solution would be.

A little bit of what you are asking here is like asking what brand of tires come with the new car you are about to buy. Its OK to know, but that really is not what you are buying. You are buying transportation.

 

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[LightHouse]

right click and go to "view page source" to get a better idea

the only thing you will see in their page source unless there are notes or sym links/references to specific things of specific code is their html or markup language. IE in coldfusion you will see references to libraries show up in the pages source at times. but for something unix based youll have no idea wether its RoR, php, etc etc. They are all serverside programming not browser markup languages like xml and html are.

hope any of that made sense

 

[ihenman]

LightHouse

Viewing page source won't do it for ya unfortunately. PHP, ASP and .NET are server side scripting languages, meaning they execute on the web server before they spit out what ever data you're looking for.

A previous poster to the thread is correct through manipulation of a .htaccess on a file linux server you can make any page look like something with any extension (i.e. an html page look like .php or .asp).

When it really comes down to it you're going to see three different types of code

1.) Straight html (could be Xhtml shtml etc. but it's basically HTML and the most technical thing that occurs is an include which means some data (I.e. a nav bar or footer) is stored in an outside txt file for easy updates and is included on every page.

2.) PHP and MYsql - MYsql is a database so it stores stuff and PHP the language goes and grabs it from the DB and displays it using HTML and CSS.

3.) ASP/.NET or C# and ACCESS or MYsql - Same idea as above except that .net, asp or C# is the langauge grabbing info from an ACESS, MYsql or sometimes just an SQL DB depending on how "enterprise" the site is.

You can bet most large sites owned by large corps are ASP/.NET or C# driven with an ACCESS or SQL backend.

Telling that from the front end is tough, but page extension can help.

Many sites now also use content management systems (CMS's). You can generally get a feel if you view source and look at the top portion to see where the stylesheet is being linked from. Most CMS's a la Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc. have themes and you can see that in the source code.

Doesn't fully answer but I hope that sheds a little light on things for ya.

-Ian

 

[LightHouse]

LightHouse

Viewing page source won't do it for ya unfortunately. PHP, ASP and .NET are server side scripting languages, meaning they execute on the web server before they spit out what ever data you're looking for.

Yeah i think we are saying the same thing, haha.

 

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[maximus20895]

Ok, I'm obviously not the same one with this question judging from looking around and search didn't get me anywhere. Hopefully, the answers here will be useful and maybe we can make a sticky out of it. The question is:

Since some of us are still a bit on the coding challenged side, how can we tell what types of coding (php, html, xhtml, mySQL, Oracle, Magento, etc....) are used on the sites that some of us are looking at for ideas?


Cheers
-Cameron

To make it simple:

Most anything that you can see are HTML or CSS. CSS is kinda like HTML, it just makes it so you don't have to write the same HTML over and over again. It gives a "global" approach.

XHTML is HTML just more strict. Does the same thing, but it doesn't allow shoddy programming.

For example:

<b><i>This text is bold and italic</b></i>

The above is bad since </b> doesn't end at the very end. It will work for HTML, but I don't think it will for XHTML

In XHTML, all elements must be properly nested within each other, like this:


<b><i>This text is bold and italic</i></b>

See how </b> is now at the end. Everything is uniform. Just a small example. Same as HTML, but everything needs to be uniform.

Most anything with memberships, blogs, or "systems" is php like this forum (vBulletin), Wordpress, Magento etc

Most anything with memberships also have mySQL. mySQL is just a database. So all this text that I am writing here is sent to the database to store. How is it sent? Through PHP. The php tells mySQL to store this information along with usernames, passwords, images, etc

Oracle is SQL, (Structured Query Language) it is just a program that most databases use. Yes, mySQL uses Oracle.

I think I covered everything that you mentioned. This is a simple guide and for the most part this is what people use

 

[Inphinity]

3.) ASP/.NET or C# and ACCESS or MYsql - Same idea as above except that .net, asp or C# is the langauge grabbing info from an ACESS, MYsql or sometimes just an SQL DB depending on how "enterprise" the site is.

Please don't ever use an Access DB for any web content, please

And a lot of larger sites use an Oracle DB btw

 

[maximus20895]

Yea, Access can't even import SQL..how dumb. Found that out today..

 

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[healthstatus]

Most anything with memberships, blogs, or "systems" is php like this forum (vBulletin), Wordpress, Magento etc

Oracle is SQL, (Structured Query Language) it is just a program that most databases use. Yes, mySQL uses Oracle.

These statements are completely wrong.

A lot of the Internet that has dynamic content is PHP it is a popular language, there are lots of other languages that work in a similar fashion, and many sites, blogs and "systems" (whatever that is) are written in them.

Oracle is a database program like MySQL, postgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL. No, MySQL does not use Oracle.

 

[Inphinity]

Yea, Access can't even import SQL..how dumb. Found that out today..

Huh? Not sure what you mean here, sorry. I suspect perhaps you're getting a number of database-related terms and concepts muddled ( and as above, no, MySQL doesn't use Oracle - these are two different RDBMS products).

 

[maximus20895]

Not at all.

If I wrote some SQL code:

create table etc

Microsoft Access can not import it since it is a DDL.

You simply can not write SQL and then import it into Access. That's all I was trying to say.

I meant to say mysql uses sql. Sorry.

 

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[Inphinity]

You simply can not write SQL and then import it into Access. That's all I was trying to say.

Yes you can, but Access uses some slightly different syntax than many other DBs (although it is very closely aligned with SQL Server).

 

[maximus20895]

Yea, they just can't use DDL commands like to create a table for instance which is want I needed it to do.

 

[Inphinity]

Yea, they just can't use DDL commands like to create a table for instance which is want I needed it to do.

Access supports most common DDL syntax, including create table.

 

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