cgi is an interface, not a language. perl and python are generally used for it.
IMO, don't bother with it. it's dead. asp/php/jsp/cfm/ and all the rest have taken over.
Java... sucks. yeah, its a great technolgy, but XP didn't even come with the runtime environment, and chances are, most users don't have java installed on their machines.
on top of that, i find it slow, annoying as fuck, and frankly, i think it sucks. the only good use of java i've seen is yahoo games.
for a web site that doesn't involve any kinda game interaction, its useless. (my opinion of course)
javascript is great for client side shit that can't be done with css (which by the time v3 of css comes out, js will pretty much be useless anyway)... but for server-side, its slow, huge code for simple shit, and generally, sucks. (again, my opinion).
PHP= pre-hypertext processor. pre meaning before, hypertext meaning html, processor meaning the thing that does stuff.
in a nutshell, it fucking owns.
if you know C++, php will be a breeze. its all the good shit of C++ without all the useless (imo) pointers and ref vars that just loop you like a 2-dollar whore.
pretty much everywhere will give you php and a mysql database. but even without a database, php is very very powerful.
i couldn't being to teach you a language in a forum...
php.net is the home and has a complete function list.
sitepoint.com has great forums and articles
phpbuilder.net has great articles
w3schools.com will give you the basic 101 type shit.
you mention a menu uptop... well, thats straight HTML... and a little style from CSS. php has nothing to do with it. remember- php happens on the server.
for example:
Code:
<?php
include("somefile.html");
?>
will you guessed it, include that page.
it can be uber simple... and most stuff you will do at first will be like this.
but, and that same time, its a hugely powerful, object-oriented prgramming environment.
Code:
<?
class blah {
// some comment
var $some var = '';
function somefunctionName() {
$numDirs = count($this->scriptArray);
for ($i=0; $i<$numDirs; $i++) {
if (!in_array($this->scriptArray[$i], $this->removeDirs))
$newArray[] = $this->scriptArray[$i];
}
return $newArray;
}
}
//initiate the class
$class = new class;
//spit it out
echo "<p>".$class->show_functionname()."</p>";
?>
