Basic - difference b/w programming lingo

[StreamLine]

Ok, this is a very basic question, but as someone just starting out, it would be good to clear up.

What is the difference, what does each mean?:
Perl, CGI, PHP, CGI, MySQL, JSP, .NET, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, SHTML..

I realize I should know this but I gotta start somewhere..

[WebHost Admin]

Basically you're asking about different scripting and programming languages for the most part:

Perl used to be the big guy in town for building software applications for Linux boxes, but PHP has since taken over and shown it can do more and better with less hassle.

CGI is basically associated with Perl...

MySQL is a form of database, more efficient than running Access on a server, and nowadays you get a lot of PHP applications running on a MySQL database backend.

Javascript is more extra functions you can add to HTML pages - not always a good idea from a search-engine friendly point of view, and especially with a significant number of surfers with JAvascript turned off - Ajax looks like a really interesting development to come out of it, though.

JSP and SHTML - actually not too sure about these - I tend to associate them as rough equivalents for Windows of PHP, etc.

.NET is a sort of computing architecture - a bit out there for me I'm afraid.

[monaghan]

Perl - complex scritping language, usually found on a unix system, however it has been ported to most OS's now. Perl will do virtually anything, however the syntax can be confusing for those not from a unix background.
CGI - a mechanism of passing a web page request from the web server software to an external application. CGI applications generally tend to be written in PERL or a complied language like C. CGI is a standard across most web server software.
PHP - a C like interpreted langauge, processed server side either via an extension to the web server or via CGI. This is generally a simple language to pick up and learn. It has become a standard offering for most web servers.
MySQL - a highly complex and powerful relational database system, again generally found on unix systems, however ports are available for quite a number of OS's (including Windows). Usually used as a back end for web based systems due to it's speed for simple queries, however it will scale up to full enterprise applications if required. Later releases have most features usually found in high end relational databases.
JSP - a server side Java system, in much the same way as PHP, but allows you to code in Java.
.NET - a framework for Microsoft Windows applications. New languages VB.Net, C# have been created to make use of the framework. (very simple explanation, whole books have been written on the subject)
JAVA - Object oriented programming language, similiar to C++ Usually found as a downloadable bit of code on a web page, but equally at home in the corporate applications market as well.
JAVASCRIPT - Scritping language, often found in a web environment to provide additional functionality to web pages as the script can be executed by the web browser.
SHTML - Server parsed html file, can include a few dynamic elements, generally PHP or ASP would be used these days.

[StreamLine]

Thanks for the explanations. I think that as a beginning programmer I'm going to try to pick up PHP first. It seems to have the broadest use and to be somewhat simple, plus i already have a fat book about it. Am I right to do so?

[monaghan]

PHP should see you fine to get started

[Ramage]

Yes, PHP is a great starting point. I started with Visual Basic which was also too not bad..