Tools Used in Server-Side Web Development

• PHP

  PHP is a preprocessor, meaning it renders html on the server based on whatever server side logic you write in php, then it sends it to the client as a normal html page. The value of it lies in the ability to display custom content based on user request, whether that be displaying data for a specific user logged in, or render specific information from a users query.

• MySQL

  MySQL is used to create databses, databases store large amounts of data in tables to be accessed later. This means a website can access database entries to populate fields, or store user data to be accessed at a later time. its important in any situation where data and what could be displayed changes often and you can add custom logic to access a database when a user needs to see somehting, rather than manually changing html every time.

• Django

  Django is a python based framework for creating backends for database driven websites. Django is free and open source, making it very accessible to use as needed in many projects. Django can handle many web development needs from basic CRUD apps that just need to add, delete or view database entries as needed or even user authentication to login.

• Node.js

  Node.js is a javascript run time that runs off the clients browser, this lets someone write server side logic in javascript, meaning client and server side scripts can be in the same language. Node.js is event driven and can be used for development of many realtime applications were users may need to be updated in real time without refreshing their pages.