HTML

Stands for "Hyper-Text Markup Language." This is the language that Web pages are written
in. Also known as hypertext documents, Web pages must conform to the rules of HTML in order to
be displayed correctly in a Web browser. The HTML syntax is based on a list of tags that describe
the page's format and what is displayed on the Web page. Fortunately, the HTML language is
relatively easy to learn. Even more fortunately (so much for good grammar), many Web
development programs allow you to create Web pages using a graphical interface. These programs
allow you to place objects and text on the page and the HTML code is written for you.

CSS

Stands for "Cascading Style Sheet." Cascading style sheets are used to format the layout of Web
pages. They can be used to define text styles, table sizes, and other aspects of Web pages that
previously could only be defined in a page's HTML.
CSS helps Web developers create a uniform look across several pages of a Web site. Instead of
defining the style of each table and each block of text within a page's HTML, commonly used styles
need to be defined only once in a CSS document. Once the style is defined in cascading style sheet, it
can be used by any page that references the CSS file. Plus, CSS makes it easy to change styles across
several pages at once. For example, a Web developer may want to increase the default text size
from 10pt to 12pt for fifty pages of a Web site. If the pages all reference the same style sheet, the
text size only needs to be changed on the style sheet and all the pages will show the larger text.

JavaScript
A scripting language developed by Netscape to enable Web authors to design interactive sites.
Although it shares many of the features and structures of the full Java language, it was developed
independently. JavaScript can interact with HTML source code, enabling Web authors to spice up
their sites with dynamic content. JavaScript is endorsed by a number of software companies and is
an open language that anyone can use without purchasing a license. It is supported by
recent browsers from Netscape and Microsoft, though Internet Explorer supports only a subset,
which Microsoft calls Jscript.

Ajax
Ajax short for asynchronous JavaScript + XML) is a group of interrelated Web
development techniques used on the client-side to create a synchronous Web applications. With
Ajax, Web applications can send data to, and retrieve data from, a server asynchronously (in the
background) without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. Data can be
retrieved using the XML Http Request object. Despite the name, the use of XML is not
required; JSON is often used instead (see AJAJ), and the requests do not need to be asynchronous.
Ajax is not a single technology, but a group of technologies. HTML and CSS can be used in
combination to mark up and style information. The DOM is accessed with JavaScript to dynamically
display – and allow the user to interact with – the information presented. JavaScript and the
XMLHttpRequest object provide a method for exchanging data asynchronously between browser
and server to avoid full page reloads.

PHP
Self-referentially short for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, an open source, server-
side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages. In an HTML
document, PHP script (similar syntax to that of Perl orC ) is enclosed within special PHP tags.
Because PHP is embedded within tags, the author can jump between HTML and PHP (similar
to ASP and Cold Fusion) instead of having to rely on heavy amounts of code to output HTML. And,
because PHP is executed on the server, the client cannot view the PHP code. PHP can perform any
task that any CGI program can do, but its strength lies in its compatibility with many types of
databases. Also, PHP can talk across networks using IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, or HTTP.

MySQL

MySQL, pronounced either "My S-Q-L" or "My Sequel," is an open source relational database
management system. It is based on the structure query language (SQL), which is used for adding,
removing, and modifying information in the database. Standard SQL commands, such as ADD,
DROP, INSERT, and UPDATE can be used with MySQL.
MySQL can be used for a variety of applications, but is most commonly found on Web
servers. A website that uses MySQL may include Web pages that access information from a
database. These pages are often referred to as "dynamic," meaning the content of each page is
generated from a database as the page loads. Websites that use dynamic Web pages are often
referred to as database-driven websites.