Reference Documents for web tools

Hi All,

I am fairly new to the industry and although i am familiar with web technologies such as html, php, css, xml, javascript (novice) i am do not have a solid foundation in how all these work together in a web environment.

I would like some reference notes, books etc explaining the advantages of each tool and how they work together to produce a web product.

I need to improve my understanding of this for interviews.

Thanks

hmm... i dunno what to suggest in temr sof reference because most books teahc you how to use the languages rather than why yto use em. you'll find articlres dotted across the net regarding why to use and advatnages of. your brest ebt is probably using a little tool called google!

But for a quicjk summary:

html
is meaningful, sematic lanuguage used to render a webpage, the code is processed in the web browser and displayed.

css
is used to style html - because html should be semantic it should have no styling or aesthetic feature sin it - so css is to provide these. css is linked into html making it easy to update styles sitewide.

php
a server side scripting language (i think) used to generate dynamic content and used closely with a databzase such as Mysql. Iyt integrates well with html and can be used together in the same document as html.

xml I've never really experienced to be honest!

and JS I don't know too mcuh of either but I believe it is a client side language.

Corretc me if I'm wrong.

HTML and JavaScript are client-side scripting languages that are executed by the browser as the page is loaded. CSS is similar to this and is linked to HTML documents, it is primarily used to style the HTML.Used properly, HTML presents and structures the content that is to be viewed, JavaScript can add extra functionality (and do much else) without causing usability or accessibility issues, in fact if used intelligently and creatively it can increase usability. CSS is there to make the page look good, it has other uses but exists to style documents.

XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language) is a general purpose language and it allows users to define their own tags/elements. The following are application languages of XML: XHTML, RSS, MathML, GraphML, SVG. A knowledge of XML would be beneficial but is not really necessary.

PHP is a server-side language that is executed before the document is sent to the client (browser). It allows you to create dynamic content on the fly by either pulling information from databases and placing it into a html document or by creating content based on information that the user has provided or often combinations of these. PHP is a programming language, the others previously mentioned are not. It is necessary to embed PHP into your HTML for it to function properly within the context of a website.

These are (or can be) your main tools as a web developer. They can be very powerful in the right hands and can produce some impressive applications but it is often unnecessary to use all of these languages. Use JavaScript sparingly and with accessibility in mind, and use it to enhance the user experience. Always ask yourself "IS this necessary?" if you can honestly answer yes then you should be ok.

Pete.

I was basically after what you guys have just said. Although i can use some of these tools i'm not aware of what they are (if that makes sense) thats because i do not have formal education in most of these areas. For work purposes i need to understand how these interact for when i discuss the introduction of various tools for projects.

Thanks for the replies

You'll find that most people on here don't have formal education in those areas, so you're not really at a disadvantage in that way. You can read as much as you want, which does of course help to give you the background, but really the only way to fully understand how all these things work together is to get your hands dirty and try them out. You say you can use some of them already, so you're well on your way, but you're probably just going to have to take some time out and have a play. You can certainly ask specific questions on here along the way if you get stuck on anything, and people will be pleased to help, but it's probably a bit too broad of a question to just ask how all these things work together.

Don't know if that helps or not!

Yeah, different combinations of these technologies basically makes up every page on the internet. They can be used in many ways both bad and good.

Pete.