Internet Programming Languages

The use of programming languages has extended the capabilities of the Web. The common programming languages found on the Internet are as follows:

• CGI Common Gateway Interface (CGI) refers to a specification programs used to communicate with a web server.

  A CGI program, or script, is any program designed to accept from and return data to the end-user. The program can be written in any programming language, such as C, Perl, and Visual Basic Script. A common use for a CGI script is the processing of an interactive web page form.

• ASP Active Server Pages (ASP) was developed by Microsoft. These are dynamically generated HTML web pages that include scripting and create interactive web server applications.

  The scripts run on the server, rather than on the web browser (such as with CGI), generating the HTML pages sent to browsers. Visual Basic and JScript (a subset of JavaScript) are often used for the scripting. ASPs end in the file extension .asp, rather than the .htm or .html of traditional web pages.

• Java Java is an object-oriented programming language similar to C++. Developed by Sun Microsystems, the aim of Java is creating programs that are platform independent. A perfect Java program works on a PC, Macintosh, Unix, and so on, without any additional programming. Java can be used to write applications for both web and non-web use.

  Java applets are web-based Java applications called from an HTML page and can be downloaded from a web server to run on a Java-compatible browser (such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer).

• VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) enables the creation of three-dimensional (3D) environments within the Internet browser.

  VRML produces a hyperspace, or world, a 3-dimensional space appearing on the display screen. The user can figuratively move within this space; that is, as the user presses keys to turn left, right, up, or down or go forwards or backwards, the images on the screen change to give the impression that the user is moving through a real space.

• XML eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is a web page language that enables designers to create customized tags providing user-web page interaction not available with HTML. XML is a language of data structure and exchange, enabling developers to separate form from content.