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Static or Dynamic Coding 101
It is important to know the differences in technologies when talking with potential clients.
Server side languages are PHP, JSP/Java, ASP, others. Our company tends to do more work using PHP. The Joomla CMS is PHP based program. Web development using Java is more involved and more time consuming.
There are two types of code - server side and client side. Server side code sends the results to the browser as HTML. No thinking is done on the client side (in the browser). The browser has to send requests back to the server for decisions making.
JavaScript (which has nothing to do with Java) and CSS can do decision making in the browser. In this case the dynamic code is sent to the browser and the browser interprets the code and makes decisions. There is no need for requests to be sent back to the server. Client side codes saves time but you are limited in the amount of code you can send over. If you send too much the download of the page takes too long and your time saving measures are completely lost. It is not practical to download large inventories of items. In these cases you must use server side coding.
Ajax is a hybrid of server side coding and JavaScript/CSS. It performs a balancing act. It does not have all of the code on the server side. It puts some code/data on the client side and requests more when needed. This is done to keep as much thinking as possible in the browser. By operating this way, Ajax saves time and allows faster interactions.
Levels of Coding complexity - from easiest to most difficult
- Static html
- Server side coding
- Client side coding
- Ajax