What is a Server-Side Language?
The short answer is: a server-side language is a type of program that manipulates code on the server, then sends it off to your computer screen. What does that even mean, though? How does that affect my website? In more ways than you think!
Even the most basic of server-side coding can save you a ton of headache. For example, let's say you have a navigation bar on every page in your 20 page site. You relize after creating the navbar that you mis-spelled "Abuot Us". Because you copied that navbar to all of your pages, you now must go back and change all 20 pages. However, with server-side programming, You would only have to update one single page, and the entire site would be changed- what a time saver! Using any server-side technology would cut your upkeep time in half- or more.
Another excellent example of how using simple server-side language coding could help your website is when using forms. When a customer fills out a form on your website, sure, it can be emailed to you. But what if you could access that information anywhere? What if you could see just how many people have been sending you forms, what they wanted, filter the forms by state, and the like? With server-side programming, this is all possible by storing the files in a database.
However, server-side programming was not built to simply make your website faster to upload. It was built to be able to interact with the user and display "dynamic data". For example, every time you log in to your email, you have interacted with a server through some kind of server-side language. The server had to find your username and password, make sure it was correct, and send you a message based on that. Any large-scale website you find today uses server-side programming to make it run smoothly.
Ebay or any other e-commerce site uses server side language to store product information, work with bidding, keep your information, and etc. The magic behind server side languages is that you no longer have to have a separate page for every item you sell, or every customer who logs in to your site. When you click on a product, the server grabs all the information about that product in the database, and displays it on one page. If you go back and click on a different product, you are actually looking at the same page again, but the information displayed has changed, hence the term "dynamic data".
There are several types of server-side programming languages out there, the most notable of which are ASP, ASP.net, PHP and Coldfusion. ASP and ASP.net are microsoft server inventions and programming with ASP is very similar to Basic. PHP is a more difficult language that takes far more coding, and as such is quite a bit slower. ColdFusion, the language of choice at Triad Webcrafters, is a tag-based language, so it is quite similar to html, making it by far the easiest to code. Plus, coldfusion offers a few additional features not yet found in other languages.
We here at Triad Webcrafters feel very strongly that all websites should implement some form of server-side programming. Unless specifically requested, all of the sites we create are done using a server side language- generally ColdFusion. If you have any questions regarding server-side programming languages, don't hesitate to Contact Us. We are more than happy to help!