Website Development – Deciphering The Code
Those who work on website development are often known as ‘coders' and the codes with which they devise websites can range from PHP to HTML. To non-internet savvy individuals, however, these codes are like another language but they can be explained fairly simply in terms of their actual characteristics. The main types of coding used by website developers are:
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – CSS is generally recommended for the development of modern websites as it is a language that is capable of producing fast and efficient websites which are also compatible with most operating platforms which makes them accessible to more users. Using CSS is beneficial as the file sizes are smaller and the loading times are quicker. In addition to this, the cleaner code commonly associated with CSS websites makes it easier for search engines to index them.
- HTML – This stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is the primary language which most websites are built upon. HTML websites are essentially a text file consisting of markup tags. It is these markup tags that tell the internet browser how to display the page.
- PHP – This refers to Hypertext Preprocessor and it is a computer scripting language that is generally used by coders to produce dynamic web pages. PHP as a language is very suited to web development as it can be embedded into HTML pages. PHP is very popular amongst developers as it is very simple to use for a newcomer but also has many features that can be utilised by professional web developers. Essentially, what PHP can do is convert a static website that has content that needs to be changed by hand into a dynamic one that can display content based on any criteria you can think of.
- Java – This is a programming language that creates applications typically compiled to bytecode which can run on any machine with Java installed. The main principles of Java are that it should use object-orientated programming and allow the same programme to operate across multiple platforms. Java is also specifically designed to execute code from remote sources in a secure manner.
Each of these types of web design languages have their merits and when it comes to creating a website of a sufficiently high calibre, the majority of companies see the benefits of employing the skills of specialist web developers as, after all, it is their language and they're the ones who know how to speak it most coherently.
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