Advanced Minds

Also, what purpose does each serve? ASP (microsoft), JSP (sun), and PHP (open source) are all server-side _script_ing languages for manipulating data and performing functions on the server. You use these to make sites that interact with data, perform functions, access data_base_s, send email, etc. Other languages include Perl, Cold Fusion, etc. ASP.NET is just Microsoft's rebranded ASP with some newer features. CSS is cascading _style_ sheets. You use it to define visual _style_ to your (x)html elements. -Darrel

Can someone inform me as to what the pros and cons are of ASP, CSS, JSP, PHP and ASP.NET? Also, what purpose does each serve? I tried searching through the forum, but didn't find anything describing each. Thank you very much, rccm

Besides CSS, they are _script_ing / programming languages. CSS stands for cascading _style_ sheets - it allows you to create one set of page characteristics (color, table borders, fonts...) and use these _style_s on multiple pages. If you want to change the font on all your pages, you just have to change one font parameter in the _style_ sheet. ASP and ASP.net, Active Server Pages, are usually used on a Windows web server. It is possible to get some functionality out of them on a *nix web server with the right add-on installed. PHP, hypertext processor, is usually used in a *nix web serer enviroment. It is very common to use PHP with MySQL on a Linux webserver.

Just to add to ramsfield's very nice answer The programming languages (ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, Cold Fusion, JSP, etc) are usually used to create dynamic web pages that can do things like read from and write to a data_base_.