What web coding language should I spend my time learning this summer to create rich Web 2.0 like websites?
I have all summer to do whatever I want, so I’ve decided I’m going to teach myself another coding language (I already know PHP, HTML, CSS). I want to be able to create rich Web 2.0 like sites for lack of a better word. What coding language is best for this? AJAX?
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Note that AJAX is not a language, it’s a technique that is useful for doing rich web application. Pretty much any web programming language can do AJAX.
Since you already know PHP, I would recommend looking at one of the ASP.NET languages, either C# or VB.NET. No matter what language you learn you are also going to need to learn Javascript for the client side coding.
ASP.Net -> C#, VB
AJAX is not a language. It is an acronym for Asynchronous Javascript and XML.
You don’t need to learn a new coding language to do AJAX. You can use http://xajaxproject.org/ with PHP. Or if you want to learn about AJAX at a more basic level, follow this tutorial: http://www.ajaxf1.com/tutorial/ajax-php.html
Ajax is Asynchronous Javascript and XML. But it can be synchronous or asynchronous, it can use other things than Javascript and it doesn’t have to use XML, so it’s really just "and".
Learn Javascript and learn how to apply it to Ajax.