Post 4 in my Simples series takes a look at web programming languages. I’m not going to go into detail on how any specific language works but instead give you a general example of what they are, and how they are used.

In regards to the web, a programming language adds a level of dynamic interactivity to a page. Web languages include PHP,  ASP.NET and Ruby On Rails. There are more but this is just an example.

So when exactly would a web programming language be used?

To help you understand why you would use a web programming language i’ll give you an analogy of a paper based shopping catalogue – let’s say the Argos catalogue.

If the Argos catalogue was a basic website then each page would be a static html page and contain a number of products laid out in a similar fashion. As each page is static if the layout needed to change, then each page would need to be modified, it also means that all of the product information would be spread across all of the static pages. To update any of the details would require finding the specific page and editing it.

If we were to use a web programming language and a database then we would create one template page which would contained pre-defined areas for various attributes of the product such as title, image, description and price. We would then store all of the data in a database and then using a web programming language dynamically insert the data from the database into the web page.

To do this, we would write a set of scripts to connect and then retrieve data from the database.

This would me we could add a new product by simply adding a new record to a database, we could also edit or delete a product by modifying the database.

It also means that changing the layout of the page need only be done once.

A web programming language can also be used to add functions such as search, aswell as allowing new items to be added to the product database.

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