Scripting languages are a type of programming language that controls a specific software application. One example is JavaScript, that controls slight behaviour of a Web browser. For example, JavaScript in a particular fashion is an event-driven scripting language, so in this way, upon an event taking place, JavaScript “springs into action”. One JavaScript code could wait for an event when the user tries to close the tab or browser, and a message box will appear upon the event happening. As such, JavaScript is a client-side scripting language.

What is a client-side scripting language?

Client-side scripting languages are like any form of scripting language but the browser in some form is the interpreter. As such, a server-side scripting language would be a different type of scripting language genre, but in this case the interpreter is a virtual machine inside a server. In this case, the server is a physical machine that has the virtual interpreter installed on it. Basically, a virtual interpreter reads the scripting code, and translates it to HTML code of that specific result, which the browser can understand, and the same pattern would happen with the browser (HTML code -> bytecode -> screen). In this case, the screen part is where the text is displayed on the users screen.

Why have scripting languages?

Unfortunately computers aren’t like humans, and as a result can’t understand human speech commands that we say. For example, in a command-line interface, if we wanted the computer to open a specific file, we couldn’t just say “open notepad.exe” - the computer would just respond and say “unknown command”. The reason there are scripting languages are for a computer to accomplish a specific task. There are many variety of scripting languages out there, and different scripting languages are for different tasks. For example, JavaScript is a client-side scripting language and mainly an event-driven scripting language, and hence, it usually waits for events to happen. JavaScript is commonly known to be used for pop-ups, and in use with web-forms for validation purposes. Another good purpose of JavaScript is that it is capable of changing images as the mouse moves over them. Much like desktop programming languages which are mostly event-driven as well.

There are other scripting languages that are used for general-purpose activities, for example creating dynamic Web pages to create interactivity to the visitor. In such a sense, we mean that, for example, a page could display two different things. If the user is using Firefox, some text with “You are using Firefox” would be displayed, conversely, if the user is using Internet Explorer, some text would display “You are using Internet Explorer” instead. This is one form of dynamic Web pages, but of course many scripting languages could do things at a much higher-level scale than just this. Another example is creating a text-based game, completely coded in a scripting language.

Just for your information, there is a distinct differentiation between scripting languages and good old HTML. HTML alone cannot create dynamic Web pages, as such some of the examples explained in the preceding sections. HTML was created for the building of Web pages, and as a result, it is a static language, and is the structuring of Web pages (and in some cases the styling of Web pages, too).

How do I learn a scripting language?

First of all you need to understand whatever scripting language you want to go for and what exactly it does. If you want to go for client-side scripting languages, JavaScript may be a good option. And in another criteria, for server-side scripting, PHP may be a good option, as a general-purpose scripting language. Nonetheless, whatever scripting language you go for, you need to look into what exactly it is, and understand the concepts of it first. If you want more information on PHP, you can pop on over to PHP’s official Website, PHP.net and JavaScript resources and tutorials can be found with a little searching with Google.com.

Good luck!

RSS feeds are xml files updated on a regular basis which people subscribe to within RSS readers. The information carried on them is normally up to date and they are normally found on news sites and blogs, basically sites which are updated regularly and which people might like to be up to date with. In this article I will go through creating an RSS feed; they can be created in two forms: dynamic - this is where dynamic server side pages are created to query databases to display the new information automatically and require no manual intervention for the data to be displayed; manual - this is where a basic xml file is created and which has to be updated manually.

The Basic RSS Format

RSS feeds are made up of several different elements and tags which create the final document. The following is an example of an RSS feed:

As you can see the XML version used is the first thing to be declared within the document, the second being the beginning of the RSS tag which means the beginning of the feed; including both of these within your feed is important since a browser will use these to work out that it is an XML file which contains an RSS feed. Click here for an example of an RSS 2.0 feed.
The feed itself is contained within a ‘channel’ tag - some browsers output RSS feeds into a styled, readable format and this tag is important to ensure that browsers which have this capability are able to render your feed in this way. The first few lines within this tag describe your feed and contain information such as the title of the feed, a description of it, the language in which it is written as well as the last time it was updated.

After that the different items of the feed are shown - these are displayed within ‘item’ tags and there is no limit on the amount of these which you can have in one feed. The basics needed to structure an ‘item’ tag are the ‘title’ and ‘description’ tags which ensure that the item is outputted into a readable format.

Dynamic RSS Feeds

Feeds of this type require a server side page such as a PHP or ASP page be created to query a database so that the up to date information be displayed. This process requires no manual intervention and is completely automatic. To begin with you need to make sure that your page is outputted to the browser as an XML document, to do this you will need to add a header response line to the top of your page, and make sure that it outputs the page in the ‘text/xml’ format. The rest of the feed is outputted like the example above, except
Manual RSS Feeds

These feeds are ‘.xml’ files which are updated manually and always take the form of the feed displayed within the first section of this article. You should only opt for this type of feed if you aren’t going to update often as updating it can be a timely procedure.

On demand service is very young on this stage but I am sure it will take a big place in forthcoming business environment as today’s business environment is fast-moving and become notorious and unpredictable. On demand integration and services can give the organization the flexibility to dart obstacles and grab opportunity without losing rapidity and competence.

On demand service will open a multi-billion dollar market in near future. The best example is Google’s contextual advertising/ YPN that has on-demand service — buyers go online (or connect to an API) to place it and manage it, Google’s service is entirely virtual, they have nice portal system and highly customizable and scalable applications which is entirely of its own creation. In today’s challenging marketplace, it is essential for an organizations to streamline business processes and respond quickly to changes as what is today may not going to be suffice for future.

You need to spend time on MIS/market forecast and to create value-added functions, key applications, core competencies and create a role-based portal which can create on demand service that can connect content to applications to business process to people.

-Bob

If you are getting errors when you try to create a table like:

CREATE TABLE `foo` (
`bar` VARCHAR NOT NULL
)

And get a MySQL error:

MySQL said:
You have an error in your SQL syntax near ‘NOT NULL)’ at line 1

Then this probably means that you have forgotten to specify a length for the Varchar type
in the “Length/Values” column,which is a required field.

So, this is wrong:

CREATE TABLE bla (bla VARCHAR NOT NULL);

And this is correct:

CREATE TABLE bla (bla VARCHAR (25) NOT NULL);

Lynx is a text-only web browser used by people to navigate the World Wide Web. Lynx was used by many before the web gained its graphical face, although it is still used extensively today by the visually impaired poeple, people with limited physical abilities and those people with slow Internet connections who don’t want to take the time to load graphics.

Lynx is probably the most popular and widely used TEXT MODE browser on the Internet. It runs on a wide variety of platforms, including Unix, Macintosh and Windows and VMS(Virtual Memory Systems). Lynx is a full-featured browser, which means there is almost no content on the web that Lynx cannot retreive and display, either by itself or by calling on other software designed for the purpose.

Lynx is distributed under the GNU Public License which means it is free for all to use, modify and redistribute as long as it is kept in the public domain. Many people have tweaked Lynx and adapted it for use in their particular environment.

If you use the UNIX shell interface and your access provider offers it, Lynx may be interesting for you since it has a succinct key driven user interface.

Key process areas identify the issues that must be addressed to achieve a maturity level. “Each key process area identifies a cluster of related activities that when performed collectively- achieve a set of goals and enhance the process capability”( (The Capability Maturity Model: Guidelines for Improving the Software Process. Addison-Wesley. p. 32.). The KPA areas have been defined to reside at a single maturity level.

The key process areas are the requirements for achieving a maturity level. To achieve a maturity level, the key process areas for that level and the lower levels must be satisfied (or not applicable, such as software subcontract Management when there are no subcontractors).

The specific practices to execute in each key process will evolve as the organization achieves higher levels of process maturity. For instance, many of the projects estimating capabilities described in the software project planning key process area at Level 2 must evolve to handle the additional project data available at Level 3.