Defining some server terms.
- Apache
- Open source web server software. Mainly used on Linux/Unix servers, though there is are WinNT and Mac versions.
- ASP - Active Server Pages
- A Microsoft dynamic web programming technology.
- CGI - Common Gateway Interface
- CGI is the original middleware. A script or program which processes input from a web page user (for example: a click, text from a form, etc.), does something on the server (for example: translate HTML into SQL queries and send them to a database, grab a frame from a video stream, take text from a form and send it as email, etc.), and then send something back to the user.
- Cold Fusion
- A commercial middleware package generally used on WinNT web servers. Has it's own scripting language CFML which is powerful and easy to learn.
- IIS - Internet Information Server
- Microsoft web server software.
- Java
- A programming language developed by Sun in the early 90s and released to the public in 1995. Unlike the coincidentally (?) named Javascript Java can be used to code "applets" which run in the browser, or actual stand-alone applications.
- Javascript
- A programming language developed by Sun and Netscape which was introduced with the release of Netscape 2. Code is included in web pages and gets interpreted by the browser. Generally works better in Navigator though Explorer trys to support it. New capabilities introduced in subsequent versions of Navigator in versions 1.1 and 1.2.
- Jscript
- A Microsoft variation on Javascript for web Visual Basic technology.
- middleware
- Software running on a server which translates between web server software and a database. Examples: WinNT/IIS/Cold Fusion/Access or SQL Server, Linux/Apache/PHP or perl/mySQL or mSQL.
- SQL - Structured Query Language
- Standard language for constructing database queries.