Acronyms in Web Page Design

A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Frances Rhea

Web Page Design Acronyms

Web Page Designers use lots of acronyms to shorten what they are talking about. For a beginner, this can be very confusing. This article will try to demystify the meanings so you can design a better web page.

Definition of Web Page Design Acronyms

HTML: HyperText Markup Language is the written language of tags that you use to design web pages. Page elements are the base components of HTML. These are tables, paragraphs, lists and text attributes. To differentiate the elements you use tags. These tags consist of a left angle (opening) bracket (<), the tag name, and a right angle (closing) bracket (>). Most tags are paired (e.g.,

and

). The closing tag looks just like the opening tag. The difference is the inclusion of a slash (/) on the closing tag that precedes the element.

URL: The Uniform Resource Locator is the ‘address' (e.g. http://www.yoursite.com is a URL).

CSS: A Cascading Style Sheet is an extension of HTML that allows consistent web page design style.

Special Web Page Design Language Acronyms

XML: Extensible Markup Language is a way to store and present data. It is used to configure files, for mini-databases, and to exchange information between computers. The files have a special extension (.xml) rather than .html.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a scripting language and engine. It is an engine that runs in conjunction with a web server. This allows you to design web pages that change dynamically such as guest books, link exchanges and forums. They have a special extension (.php) rather than .html.

ASP: Active Server Pages use Microsoft's Scripting Engine. It is a different from PHP but similar in that they have the same purpose - creating dynamic web pages.

JSP: Java Server Pages are Sun Java's version of ASP and PHP and serve the same functions.

DBMS: A Database Management System is a program that allows you to easily save, update, delete, and search for information. MySQL is the most widely used. These are referred to as databases.

SQL: Structured Query Language is used in a database like MySQL. There are relational, object, and flat file (a series of simple text files) databases.

CGI: The Common Gateway Interface was the first method used to create dynamic web pages. These files are written in PERL. Although CGI is still used, PHP, ASP and JSP are more advanced and are easier to use.

What This Means for Web Page Design

Do not let all of these acronyms confuse you. Although the different programming languages take additional time to learn, they can help you to design a web page that dynamically updates as your visitors interact with your web page.

Using a search engine, you can find lots of resources which include tutorials, scripts and other information that will help you with your web site design. Play with the different languages. Some are easy; some are difficult. Make sure you know the your web server capabilities as it is the key to what you can accomplish.