Several questions- books on scripting languages

[Tim Gill]

Hello all,
Now that I have been ingraining HTML and CSS into my brain, I'd like to
learn a little more about client-side and server-side scripting languages.
I've written a few pages, but in the long run they are just nicely-laid out
batches of text. Not that that's bad if that's all you need to get your
point across, but I would like to start to learn how to integrate some user
databases, etc. into one of my sites.

I'm an extremely quick learner (in my own opinion, of course) and am
HTML/CSS literate. In this manner I am looking for books that deliver the
facts and methods clearly and concisely. Any suggestions out there? Also,
any pointers to web primers on any of the subjects would be great....that's
how I learned my CSS anyway....

Thanks
-TG

 

[Adrienne]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Tim Gill"

Hello all,
Now that I have been ingraining HTML and CSS into my brain, I'd like to
learn a little more about client-side and server-side scripting
languages. I've written a few pages, but in the long run they are just
nicely-laid out batches of text. Not that that's bad if that's all you
need to get your point across, but I would like to start to learn how
to integrate some user databases, etc. into one of my sites.

I'm an extremely quick learner (in my own opinion, of course) and am
HTML/CSS literate. In this manner I am looking for books that deliver
the facts and methods clearly and concisely. Any suggestions out there?
Also, any pointers to web primers on any of the subjects would be
great....that's how I learned my CSS anyway....

Thanks
-TG

You need to know SQL - Structured Query Language. There are some excellent
tutorials on the net, start off at http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp
..

 

[Mitja]

You need to know SQL - Structured Query Language. There are some
excellent tutorials on the net, start off at
http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp .

SQL is for handling databases, but it's only an interface between databases
and your scripting language of choice. Since you say you never wrote any
scripts, I recommend having a look at scripting languages first. For small
sites, plain text files can often offer a decent replacemet for databases.

The hardest thing here really is choosing the language you wanna learn. I'm
using Python and I quite like it. Then there's Perl, but I wouldn't
recommend it to a beginner. And then you've got PHP, very widely spread, and
ASP, an MS-related technology.

I guess PHP or Python is the way to go, though the choice often depends on
the given possibilities (i.e., what does the server support?).

 

[Tim Gill]

SQL is for handling databases, but it's only an interface between databases
and your scripting language of choice. Since you say you never wrote any
scripts, I recommend having a look at scripting languages first. For small
sites, plain text files can often offer a decent replacemet for databases.

The hardest thing here really is choosing the language you wanna learn. I'm
using Python and I quite like it. Then there's Perl, but I wouldn't
recommend it to a beginner. And then you've got PHP, very widely spread, and
ASP, an MS-related technology.

I guess PHP or Python is the way to go, though the choice often depends on
the given possibilities (i.e., what does the server support?).

Thanks for the help, guys. This gives me a little more direction on what to
look for.
-TG