Welcome back to part-two of our series, Tools of the Trade. Whether you’ve had a web page for years or are just now considering hanging your online shingle, the tools of the trade — and their acronyms — can be confusing. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, PHP and MySQL are some of the technologies we use every day to build successful websites for our clients. Last time, we talked about how web browsers display HTML with CSS styles. Today we’ll learn what JavaScript and AJAX bring in to the mix.

JavaScript

JavaScript, as its name might imply, is a scripting language that the web browser interprets while loading a page and afterward. Just like your computer runs a program called FireFox or Internet Exporer, your web browser runs JavaScript programs to accomplish its tasks. Note: JavaScript is not related to the programming language Java. (more…)