ActiveX
Level: ExpertFind out more about ActiveX in Wikipedia
ActiveX is an implementation of the COM specification that makes it possible for code components to be delivered as dynamic link libraries (DLLs), which Windows distributes, catalogs, and makes available to other programs needing such functionality. ActiveX makes it possible for a component written in one language, like Visual Basic, to be used by a program written in another, like JavaScript, and even to be used from a different computer using DCOM or to be transported to a web browser like IE to be used as a control on an HTML page.
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Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax)
Level: ExpertFind out more about Ajax in Wikipedia
The name "Ajax" refers to a collection of web technologies originally introduced by Microsoft for Internet Explorer (IE) and centered on its XMLHttpRequest object. It has since been implemented in Firefox and other browsers as well. The main use of Ajax is to make it easy for client-side JavaScript code to alter the contents of web pages, using DHTML, using server-side content, but without requiring the web browser to leave the current page. For example, clicking an "Expand" button on an item in a list on a web page could cause a box to be opened up below that list item with extended information fetched from the web server.
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C / C++
Level: Experienced, but rustyFind out more about C / C++ in Wikipedia
C and C++ are among the most popular structured programming languages. Unlike more modern languages like Visual Basic, C requires the programmer to take on a substantial measure of memory management, which makes it easy to accidentally introduce bugs, but also helps explain why C programs can be much more efficient. C++ adds the concept of object oriented programming (OOP), allowing programmers to more readily create code components as objects.
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Client / Server Model (C/S)
Level: ExpertFind out more about C/S in Wikipedia
The basic principle of Client / Server programming is that one machine or piece of software provides some, if not most, of the processing capability a user needs, and that the user accesses it through a client system. Often, the client and server are connected by a "raw" network connection such as TCP/IP or using a higher-level protocol like HTTP. The web is an example of a general-purpose application of the C/S concept, with web browsers like Internet Explorer acting as the clients and web servers like Apache as their servers.
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Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
Level: ExpertFind out more about CGI in Wikipedia
CGI is a specification that extends the HTTP and HTML specifications for the purpose of allowing programs to be written that can take form input from a web browser and return its output as (primarily) HTML back to the browser. It identifies the kinds of data entry fields that can be displayed on a web form and how and when that information is transmitted to the web server. It also identifies a generic method for web servers like IIS to invoke programs, provide those programs with the form data, and provide them with a basic output mechanism. These programs always run on or "behind" the web server, in contrast to the client-side programs that can be included in HTML content as scripts, JAVA applets, etc. "CGI programming" is often, though incorrectly, considered synonymous with the Perl programming language. The ASP specification is an implementation of CGI that adds substantial functionality for programmers to it.
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Google Chrome
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about Chrome in Wikipedia
Google Chrome is a cross-platform, open-source web browser. While Internet Explorer and Firefox now dominate the browser market, Google's late entry into the browser market makes a strong showing, in part because of its back-to-basics, high-performance approach. Chrome was developed on top of WebKit, which also serves as the basis of Safari, Apple's web browser, but features an all new, optimized JavaScript engine and significant tweaks of the rendering engine, making an excellent performer.
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Shoutsoft COM Express
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about COM Express in Wikipedia
COM Express is a code generation system designed primarily to allow easy realization of data entry user interfaces that mirror existing database designs. If, for example, you have a customer table in a SQL Server database, CX can generate forms for finding and editing customers. Unlike many code generators, CX is not a one-way tool. Once code has been generated, the user can regenerate the code as the database changes without loosing custom code changes he might have made along the way.
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Dynamic HTML (DHTML)
Level: ExpertFind out more about DHTML in Wikipedia
DHTML is a specification that extends HTML, primarily for the purpose of giving content developers finer control of the style of their pages and for providing a consistent and extensive object model for client-side programming using components and embedded scripts in languages like JavaScript and VBScript. In addition to subsuming the standard client-side scripting capabilities many browsers offer, DHTML allows for the ability to modify the very contents of a web page after it has been loaded. Presently, Internet Explorer provides the most extensive support for the current DHTML standard.
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Graphics Device Interface+ (GDI+)
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about GDI+ in Wikipedia
Windows graphics programming has traditionally been done using a library that goes back to early versions of Windows called GDI. This library's model involves the application requesting construction of things like bitmap, paint brush, font, and other objects and passing around handles (integer values, really) to various calls to manipulate them. GDI+ represented a significant upgrade and is largely associated with the introduction of the .NET platform. GDI+ programming is typically used with Windows apps that require fine control of graphics or with web apps that dynamically generate image files or streams, like with graphical data charts.
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Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Level: ExpertFind out more about HTML in Wikipedia
HTML is a language designed to represent text, multimedia content, and cross-document "hyperlinks" formatted for layout and style. Although HTML is not itself a programming language, the current standard versions of it do allow for script code (e.g., JavaScript) to be included in HTML content that the browser can execute on the user's own computer. This is client-side code, in contrast with the server-side coding capabilities afforded by CGI and its cousin, ASP.
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Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
Level: ExpertFind out more about HTTP in Wikipedia
HTTP is a communication protocol that identifies, primarily, a simple method for web browsers to communicate with web servers. The method basically involves the browser creating a TCP/IP connection with the server, passing a request message, which the server processes and returns as a message in the same format. Once done sending the results of a single request, the web server normally closes the connection. Requests are typically for HTML files, CGI programs, or images, though it is also common for web browsers to request the download of other kinds of files and content. HTTP can also be used as a communication mechanism for programs to communicate with one another, as with general client/server applications, perhaps delivering XML or other data formats.
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iBatis.NET
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about iBatis in Wikipedia
iBatis is primarily a data mapping (or "persistence") framework with two key roles in a typical N-tiered application. The first is to separate database calls by middle tier objects into SQL map files. The calling software passes values that get plugged into an SQL template, which could be a stored procedure call, SELECT statement, or any other SQL query. The second is to map values returned by calls to a database into "plain old objects". A classic example is a Customer object with simple properties like FirstName, LastName, BirthDate, and so on. This helps keep the programmer from favoring more obscure collections of values in favor of strongly typed objects. iBatis was originally developed for Java but has also been ported to .NET. iBatis is open source.
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Internet Explorer (IE)
Level: ExpertFind out more about IE in Wikipedia
Internet Explorer is a web browser. Originally developed in a joint venture with the developers of Netscape Navigator, IE has largely taken the lead as the browser of choice for corporate Intranet users, in part because it offers a host of extra features tailored to the features of Windows operating systems. IE can, of course, view HTML content, but the more recent versions of it can also view DHTML and XML content.
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Internet Information Server (IIS)
Level: ExpertFind out more about IIS in Wikipedia
Like, IIS is a web server, though it also offers FTP and a few other services. Like most notable web servers, IIS uses the HTTP protocol and offers the developer CGI capabilities. Although IIS offers several mechanisms for providing web applications, most IIS applications developers now create ASP pages with VBScript code as the primary language. Their code is typically used in conjunction with server-side ActiveX components, such as ADO and CDO custom components written in languages like Visual Basic.
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JavaScript
Level: ExpertFind out more about JavaScript in Wikipedia
Although it is commonly confused with Java, JavaScript is a completely independent and very different programming language from Java. JavaScript was originally developed by Netscape to provide its Navigator browser with the ability to deliver code as "scripts" right within HTML files. Since then, Microsoft has implement its own variant of JavaScript, called "JScript", which it has made available to Internet Explorer, IIS, and a host of other applications. JScript can be used as a substitute for VBScript in ASP applications.
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Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about LDAP in Wikipedia
LDAP is a protocol designed to allow software to access directory-style databases like phone books in a simple and consistent manner. Unlike a standard relational database like Oracle, an LDAP database is at least superficially a hierarchical one. The result set of a query is not returned as a set of rows with exactly the same columns in each row and single "atoms" of data in each column, but instead as a set of entities with a list of known, but not guaranteed, attributes, each of which can have many values -- essentially a list of lists of lists. With a simple ActiveX LDAP client, an ASP or other program can easily find out information about users within a given corporate Intranet.
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N-Tiered Model
Level: ExpertFind out more about N-Tier in Wikipedia
N-Tiered architecture is a model for developing applications -- typically Client / Server ones -- that subdivide their functionality into some number of "layers", or "tiers" that more or less boil down to three basic ones: user interfaces, data access, and business logic. One technology that is helping to further the reusability of business logic layers is XML, which can be used in conjunction with HTTP as a universal connectivity medium.
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Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
Level: Very experiencedFind out more about OLAP in Wikipedia
OLAP, sometimes referred to as "data mining" or "data warehousing", is a powerful reporting technology centered around the premise that people can get a lot of value out of simple aggregations (sums, averages, and the like) of a handful of measures, when viewed as a (usually) grid-shaped cross-section of a multi-dimensional data space.
An example "cube" might include dimensions of time, location, and product lines. Each of these three dimensions might have several hierarchic levels; e.g., location might have country, state, city, and store. A user might choose to show a grid of total sales and have locations as row headers and times (say, months) as column headers. He might click on the "USA - Florida" column to expand that part of the grid to show all the cities in Florida with stores and hence the total sales in finer detail. And he might choose to "slice" this view by product, so instead of seeing total sales for one location / time, it's reflective of one or more specific product lines, for example.
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Practical Extension and Reporting Language (Perl)
Level: ExpertFind out more about Perl in Wikipedia
Perl is a high-level (and often obtuse) structure programming language. Presently, it is one of the most popular programming languages for web developers, who use it to implement CGI applications on web servers like Apache and IIS. The JavaScript language was largely modeled after the basic principles of Perl, offering native list and associative array data structures, dynamic code construction and execution, regular expression processing. VBScript has likewise adopted many of these same elements.
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Spring.NET
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about Spring in Wikipedia
Spring is an open source application framework. It is primarily suited for implementing a loose coupling concept called "dependency injection". For example, a web page might need a service object the middle tier provides. Rather than directly instantiate that object in the web page code, a configuration file would tell Spring that the web page has a public property that needs to have an instance of the given service class attached. This "inversion of control" concept increases the ability to swap out different objects and interfaces and even introduce extra behaviors without requiring changes to consumer or producer. Spring was originally developed for Java, but is also available for .NET.
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Structured Query Language (SQL)
Level: ExpertFind out more about SQL in Wikipedia
SQL is not a programming language, but plays a central role in most business applications that need to deal with relational databases like Access or Oracle. SQL allows developers to answer sophisticated questions using single statements and by hiding the details of data merging, filtering, and sorting. In addition, SQL allows developers to modify data in such databases through carefully constructed queries. Queries are most often constructed of plain text using deceptively simple statements like "SELECT Name, Birthdate FROM Employees". Developers of ASP applications typically execute SQL queries through ADO, receiving the results as recordsets.
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Telephony Application Programmers' Interface (TAPI)
Level: ExperiencedFind out more about TAPI in Wikipedia
Microsoft has largely taken the lead in the area of providing integration between computer software and telephony systems using its telephony API, or "TAPI", standard. Like in the early days of Windows print driver standardization by printer vendors, vendors of telephony systems do not yet do a perfect job of follow the TAPI standards, but most of them at least support what is currently one of the most popular applications of computer telephony interfacing (CTI): making a phone dial a phone number for you. With a reasonably sophisticated and TAPI-compliant phone system, one can also make software be alerted when calls come in, to get caller ID information for it, manage call routing and interactive phone menus, and much more.
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Transfer Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
Level: Very experiencedFind out more about TCP/IP in Wikipedia
TCP/IP is the common language that computers on the Internet speak. A developer of a Client / Server application needs only be able to tell the server to listen on a given port for incoming connection requests, then to tell the client that it needs to make connections on that same port, but to the IP address of the server. Once connected, his client and server can send streams of text or binary data to one another. The programmer doesn't, however, need to know how the operating systems manage their network devices and so forth in order to implement such an application.
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Visual Basic (VB)
Level: ExpertFind out more about VB in Wikipedia
Visual Basic is a popular structured programming language for developers of Windows applications. VB has become Microsoft's preferred "glue language" for constructing applications using existing pre-built elements, like ActiveX components and form constructs and a relatively minimal amount of actual code. Because of its simple syntax, powerful data structures and type conversions, and easy access through its development tools to existing components, VB is a quick learn for most new and experienced programmers. The introduction of VB for Applications, or "VBA", has helped to further its popularity by making it possible for developers of higher-end software products to allow their own users to write simple programs to enhance those products. The more recent introduction of VBScript as roughly a subset of VB has further enhanced the popularity of VB, especially since it allows experienced VB programmers to quickly step into the world of web development through ASP and DHTML.
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Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript)
Level: ExpertFind out more about VBScript in Wikipedia
VBScript is a programming language that derives from Visual Basic. Until its most recent versions, VBScript lacked VB's object-oriented provisions. Although entire Windows applications can readily be developed with VBScript, programmers have been focussed their use of VBScript on web development. For ASP development, VBScript has been the language of choice. Client-side scripting of web browsers has seen limited use of VBScript -- mostly for corporate intranets standardized on the Internet Explorer browsers. VBScript has recently been ported to a few other platforms, but this has seen limited application, perhaps mainly because most of the ActiveX components VBScript programmers make use of have not also been ported to those platforms.
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Visual InterDev (VID)
Level: Very experiencedFind out more about VID in Wikipedia
Although there is a great deal of confusion among new and non-users, Visual InterDev is not a programming language or no-code development tool. It is primarily a code editor and remote file manager. Most developers use it to store, retrieve, and edit ASP programs written in the VBScript language. The latest versions of VID include useful tools to help manage database access, remotely debug their programs, and a host of other activities.
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Windows API (Win API)
Level: Very experiencedFind out more about Win API in Wikipedia
While a programming language has its own ability to compile code to perform things like conditional evaluations, loops, and so on, it must generally rely on the operating system to provide the application program with access to input, output, storage, printing, and other resources. The Windows API is a set of DLLs delivered with the Windows operating systems that provides windows applications with an interface to the functionality Windows provides. While most programming languages available for Windows programmers hides the details of dealing with the API, few of them implement all of the API's functionality. Microsoft's Visual C++, Visual Basic, and some other development environments provide the application programmer with the capability to directly interface with the API to do certain things these languages don't directly support but which Windows does.
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Windows NT / 9x / 3.x / CE / PPC
Level: ExpertFind out more about Windows in Wikipedia
Windows is the common name given to a series of operating systems built by Microsoft that offer similar sets of OS features and application development methodologies. NT is considered the most powerful and stable. The 16-bit versions of Windows (including version 3.1) were an outgrowth of MS' older DOS operating system, and provided a graphical user interface. Windows 95 and its brother, Windows 98, were developed to help bridge the gap that divided the 16-bit 3.11 version and the 32-bit NT version. Windows Client Edition, or "CE", is a new and distinct OS that delivers the same basic model as the above ones and a subset of their programmers' interfaces (APIs) in a very compact package designed to be run on handheld and other limited-resource computers. Two of the most popular programming languages for Windows development are Visual Basic and C++. Windows NT and its successors have found an important role as a server platform for databases (SQL Server), the web (IIS), and custom ActiveX and other servers.
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Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Level: ExpertFind out more about XML in Wikipedia
XML is a specification for a general-purpose data structure. It is a subset of the older Standardized General Markup Language (SGML), for which HTML is a particular application. XML was primarily developed in an effort to take the basic elements of SGML, leaving behind the extra baggage that made creating parsers to read SGML very difficult. The result is a specification that can be fairly easily implemented by the programmers looking to increase the interconnectivity of their applications and industries. XML is also being used by the newest generation of web browsers as a way for content developers to deliver their products that extends a bit beyond HTML. Because this presently requires a great deal of extra programming overhead, It seems more likely that XML will find its place mostly among system-to-system communication than in low-end web publishing.
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HTML (best)