Forms Processing

[Jeremy Fowler]

Sorry to be a stickler but...

programming language
n. 
An artificial language used to write instructions that can be translated into machine language and 
then executed by a computer. 

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
 
HTML may not have all the constructs and features of most of today's programming languages. 
However, considering the above definition, HTML is an artificial language which contains 
instructions that is translated into machine language by the web browser to display information on 
the screen. Then there is always DHTML which is a Hybrid of HTML mixed with a client-side scripting 
language of some kind (JavaScript, VBScript, etc.). 

PHP is a full-featured scripting language that can be used like perl, python, ruby, or any of the 
numerous shell languages. Granted it's primary use is as a server-side scripting language embedded 
in HTML. That's not saying someone can't create a PHP only file and run it like any other UNIX 
executable as long as the pound-bang points to an appropriate interpreter. 

CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface and it's not a language but a standard for interfacing 
external applications with information servers. 

> Let's be sure to call things what they are.  HTML is merely 
> Hyper Text 
> Markup Language.  It's not a programming language by any 
> stretch of the 
> imagination.  PHP is an embedded language that is evaluated 
> and executed 
> prior to serving out a web page... the results themselves 
> being delivered 
> in HTML format.
> 
> When we speak of using HTML to accomplish something, we don't 
> particularly 
> mean that HTML can interface with MySQL at all.  You have to 
> use some form 
> of middleware glue, be it PHP, Perl (which is prolly what is 
> being used if 
> you write a CGI interface, but could certainly be C or Python 
> or any other 
> language), or anything else.  HTML is stateless and dumb.
> 
> > PHP is a little more advanced than HTML, but a lot of it is also the
> > same as HTML code.  If you live in the KC area, Microcenter 
> usually has
> > PHP books in their discount books isles (all the way in the 
> back by the
> > magazines) from anywhere from $4.95 to $9.95.
> 
> Again - I agree.  PHP is certainly more advanced, because it _is_ a 
> programming language, where HTML isn't.
> 
> To the original poster:
> Feel free to contact me off list, and I can get you started 
> down the road 
> to making PHP get this done.  Once you have your code the way 
> you like it, 
> you can pretty up the output.  Shouldn't be very difficult - 
> such as the 
> previous post - around 10 lines or so.
> Dustin
> 
> --
> o-----------------------------------o
> | Dustin Decker - CNA, MCP          |
> | dustin at dustindecker.com       
> o-------------------------------------o
> | Network Engineer              | "Everywhere there rises 
> before our  |
> | Preferred Physicians Group    | eyes the specter of a 
> society where |
> o-------------------------------| security, if it is attained 
> at all, |
>                                 | will be attained at the 
> expense of  |
>                                 | freedom, where the security 
> that is |
> 				| attained will be the security of    |
> 				| fed beasts in a stable, and where   |
> 				| all the high aspirations of humanity|
> 				| will have been crushed by an all-   |
> 				| powerful state."		      |
> 				|  -- J. Gresham Machen               |
>                                 
> o-------------------------------------o
> 
> 
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