What's the difference between HTML,CSS,MySql,PHP,RGSS and C++??

[Dai 0]

When I search for programming and how to make game and stuff like that..all these pops up..but what are the differences?

[kellessdee 48]

They are all different languages used for programming + webdesign (and there are MANY MANY more) but of the ones you mentioned here:

 

HTML - Hypertext Markup Language: the basic language for websites. It is simply a markup language that is interpreted by the web browser to display different web elements (uses tagging, such as <title>This is a title</title>)

 

CSS - Cascading Style Sheet: This is a language that is used to define styles for HTML (so HOW the elements are displayed)

 

MySQL - SQL = Structured Query Language (the My was just added by the original creator): it's a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. This basically handles the database side of websites.

 

PHP - PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (recursive acronym): This is a scripting language for creating dynamic web pages; mostly involves server-side handling.

 

RGSS - Ruby Game Scripting System: Not actually a programming language, it is actually just a library of classes written to extend the Ruby scripting language to make making a game much easier. This is the game Library used for RPG Maker XP (RPG Maker VX uses RGSS2)

 

C++ - is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features.

 

I dunno if this helps, but RGSS or C++ are what would be more fit for making a game. (Although to use RGSS you would need RPG Maker XP/VX) The first 4 languages are better suited for web design. There are also MANY MANY MANY MANY other programming languages that exist, and that could be used in making a game. If you have not programmed before, I might suggest either learning Java or Visual Basic as a good introductory language to programming, but feel free to start anywhere. (I MIGHT advise against learning C/C++/C# first however, these languages are generally more complex and powerful than most popular languages, although also much faster)

[Kiriashi 117]

Wow, nice post Jelly. ^_^

 

 

Dai, you don't need to worry about anything other than Ruby and how its used in RMXP and RMVX via RGSS... Though kell pretty much said that already.

[Blackbound 4]

Possible languages involved in making games:

Ruby/RGSS- RPG Maker scripting system

Python- General system- found easily with Blender

Java- please see Minecraft for a perfect example of this

C++- this is the bases of 90% of games currently out there. The source engine uses this (Valve), so does the Unreal Engine. However while there are books and tutorials out there, I dont recommend trying to learn this first.

C#- XNA Studio and Xbox Live Arcade; nuff said- see above.

C- Predessor of C++; Less feature-active than C++. If you must go with any of these, I recommend C++.

VB.NET- not so good for making games, but very very helpful in making various windows applications; also very easy to learn and master.

[kellessdee 48]

Wow, nice post Jelly. ^_^

 

Dai, you don't need to worry about anything other than Ruby and how its used in RMXP and RMVX via RGSS... Though kell pretty much said that already.

:o WHERE HAVE YOUUUUU BEEN :3

 

thanks, I did google some of that info (I didn't want to misinform anyone)

 

ALSO: ++++++ <3's cuz you didn't call RGSS a programming/scripting language :3

[nerd]though technically RGSS would be used through ruby rather than the other way around...[/nerd]

[Kiriashi 117]

:o WHERE HAVE YOUUUUU BEEN :3

 

thanks, I did google some of that info (I didn't want to misinform anyone)

 

I've been here, just not posting as often as usual. ^_^

 

 

ALSO: ++++++ <3's cuz you didn't call RGSS a programming/scripting language :3

[nerd]though technically RGSS would be used through ruby rather than the other way around...[/nerd]

 

 

Oh yeah? I beg to differ. Ruby > RGSS right? So in writing something for RGSS, you are using ruby? So you're using Ruby via RGSS and RGSS2. Though YOU'RE the 'scripter' here so I'll shutup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:3

[Noob Saibot 38]

HTML Info

 

 

 

What is HTML?

 

HTML is a computer language devised to allow website creation. These websites can then be viewed by anyone else connected to the Internet. It is relatively easy to learn, with the basics being accessible to most people in one sitting; and quite powerful in what it allows you to create. It is constantly undergoing revision and evolution to meet the demands and requirements of the growing Internet audience under the direction of the » W3C, the organization charged with designing and maintaining the language.

 

The definition of HTML is HyperText Markup Language.

 

• HyperText is the method by which you move around on the web — by clicking on special text called hyperlinks which bring you to the next page. The fact that it is hyper just means it is not linear — i.e. you can go to any place on the Internet whenever you want by clicking on links — there is no set order to do things in.
  
• Markup is what HTML tags do to the text inside them. They mark it as a certain type of text (italicised text, for example).
  
• HTML is a Language, as it has code-words and syntax like any other language.
  

 

 

 

PHP Info

 

 

What is PHP?

 

PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.

 

Nice, but what does that mean? An example:

 

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
   <head>
       <title>Example</title>
   </head>
   <body>

       <?php
           echo "Hi, I'm a PHP script!";
       ?>

   </body>
</html>

 

Instead of lots of commands to output HTML (as seen in C or Perl), PHP pages contain HTML with embedded code that does "something" (in this case, output "Hi, I'm a PHP script!"). The PHP code is enclosed in special start and end processing instructions <?php and ?> that allow you to jump into and out of "PHP mode."

 

What distinguishes PHP from something like client-side JavaScript is that the code is executed on the server, generating HTML which is then sent to the client. The client would receive the results of running that script, but would not know what the underlying code was. You can even configure your web server to process all your HTML files with PHP, and then there's really no way that users can tell what you have up your sleeve.

 

The best things in using PHP are that it is extremely simple for a newcomer, but offers many advanced features for a professional programmer. Don't be afraid reading the long list of PHP's features. You can jump in, in a short time, and start writing simple scripts in a few hours.

 

Although PHP's development is focused on server-side scripting, you can do much more with it.

 

What can PHP do?

 

PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so you can do anything any other CGI program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or send and receive cookies. But PHP can do much more.

 

There are three main areas where PHP scripts are used.

 

1. Server-side scripting. This is the most traditional and main target field for PHP. You need three things to make this work. The PHP parser (CGI or server module), a web server and a web browser. You need to run the web server, with a connected PHP installation. You can access the PHP program output with a web browser, viewing the PHP page through the server. All these can run on your home machine if you are just experimenting with PHP programming. See the installation instructions section for more information.
   
2. Command line scripting. You can make a PHP script to run it without any server or browser. You only need the PHP parser to use it this way. This type of usage is ideal for scripts regularly executed using cron (on *nix or Linux) or Task Scheduler (on Windows). These scripts can also be used for simple text processing tasks. See the section about Command line usage of PHP for more information.
   
3. Writing desktop applications. PHP is probably not the very best language to create a desktop application with a graphical user interface, but if you know PHP very well, and would like to use some advanced PHP features in your client-side applications you can also use PHP-GTK to write such programs. You also have the ability to write cross-platform applications this way. PHP-GTK is an extension to PHP, not available in the main distribution. If you are interested in PHP-GTK, visit » its own website.
   

 

PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Linux, many Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD), Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, RISC OS, and probably others. PHP has also support for most of the web servers today. This includes Apache, IIS, and many others. And this includes any web server that can utilize the FastCGI PHP binary, like lighttpd and nginx. PHP works as either a module, or as a CGI processor.

 

So with PHP, you have the freedom of choosing an operating system and a web server. Furthermore, you also have the choice of using procedural programming or object oriented programming (OOP), or a mixture of them both.

 

With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. PHP's abilities includes outputting images, PDF files and even Flash movies (using libswf and Ming) generated on the fly. You can also output easily any text, such as XHTML and any other XML file. PHP can autogenerate these files, and save them in the file system, instead of printing it out, forming a server-side cache for your dynamic content.

 

One of the strongest and most significant features in PHP is its support for a wide range of databases. Writing a database-enabled web page is incredibly simple using one of the database specific extensions (e.g., for mysql), or using an abstraction layer like PDO, or connect to any database supporting the Open Database Connection standard via the ODBC extension. Other databases may utilize cURL or sockets, like CouchDB.

 

PHP also has support for talking to other services using protocols such as LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP, COM (on Windows) and countless others. You can also open raw network sockets and interact using any other protocol. PHP has support for the WDDX complex data exchange between virtually all Web programming languages. Talking about interconnection, PHP has support for instantiation of Java objects and using them transparently as PHP objects.

 

PHP has useful text processing features, which includes the Perl compatible regular expressions (PCRE), and many extensions and tools to parse and access XML documents. PHP standardizes all of the XML extensions on the solid base of libxml2, and extends the feature set adding SimpleXML, XMLReader and XMLWriter support.

 

And many other interesting extensions exist, which are categorized both alphabetically and by category. And there are additional PECL extensions that may or may not be documented within the PHP manual itself, like » XDebug.

 

 

 

MySQL Info

 

 

 

What is MySQL?

 

MySQL is a database system used on the web. Basically, a MySQL database allows you to create a relational database structure on a web-server somewhere in order to store data or automate procedures. If you think of it in comparison to Microsoft Access, MySQL is what holds all of your tables, PHP acts as your queries (among other things), and your forms are basically web pages with fields in them. With all of this combined, you can create truly spectacular projects on the web.

 

MySQL is also open source in that it’s free and falls under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Chances are, if you are getting your own web-page or already have one – your host supports MySQL and PHP. They are generally associated with (though not limited to) Unix/Linux based servers. If by chance you are considering getting your own page and want MySQL and PHP support, check out Dreamhost – I’ve been using them for years and they absolutely can’t be beat.

 

Interacting with a MySQL database is a little weird as you don’t have the tried and true WYSIWYG interface that something as easy as Microsoft Access affords. When creating tables, you’ll either have to create them by using SQL Statements, or by using another open-source tool available online called PHPMyAdmin. PHPMyAdmin gives you an easy-to-use interface that allows you to create tables and run queries by filling in a little bit of information and then having the tables created for you. This is good if you’re either lazy, or don’t feel like bothering with big and complicated SQL Statements.

 

In comparing MySQL to Access you’re going to have a truckload of differences. While MySQL isn’t exactly tough to tackle (once the tables are created – you’re pretty much done with it), it’s capabilities extend far beyond that of Microsoft Access when dealing with speed and reliability. It’s simply a better system – and it should be. Microsoft Access (as much as I love it) is only a desktop database system. And while a limit of 10-20 concurrent Microsoft Access users is fine for most small organizations – when you’ve got a webpage getting 10,000 hits a day you’ll need something that can handle all of those queries efficiently.

 

MySQL tables also have the luxury of using “real” data types – not those little fluffy ones you see in Microsoft Access. Need a text field that can hold over four billion characters? Not a problem, just use the LongText data type. Want the field to hold that many characters and be case-sensitive? Easy, just use the LongBlob data type. Need to store numbers from 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (for those of you who are curious, that would be over 18 Quintillion), then use the BigInt data type. Indeed, 18 quintillion is a big integer.

 

As you can see, the limitations of Access fall well within the capabilities of MySQL. This is one of the many reasons that huge webpages use MySQL to handle their millions of daily hits. Well, that, and it’s free!

 

 

 

C++ Info

 

 

 

What is C++

 

C++ is a type of computer programming language. Created in 1983 by Bjarne Stroustrup, C++ was designed to serve as an enhanced version of the C programming language. C++ is object oriented and is considered a high level language. However, it features low level facilities. C++ is one of the most commonly used programming languages.

 

The development of C++ actually began four years before its release, in 1979. It did not start out with the name C++; its first name was C with Classes. In the late part of 1983, C with Classes was first used for AT&T’s internal programming needs. Its name was changed to C++ later in the same year. C++ was not released commercially until the late part of 1985.

 

Developed at Bell Labs, C++ enhanced the C programming language in a variety of ways. Among the features of C++ are classes, virtual functions, templates, and operator overloading. The C++ language also counts multiple inheritance and exception handling among its many features. C++ introduced the use of declarations as statements and includes more type checking than is available with the C programming language.

 

Considered a superset of the C programming language, C++ maintains a variety of features that are included within its predecessor. As such, C programs are generally able to run successfully in C++ compilers. However, there are some issues that may cause C code to perform differently in C++ compilers. In fact, it is possible for some C code to be incompatible in C++.

 

The C++ computer programming language was created for UNIX, providing programmers with the advantage of being able to modify code without actually changing it; C++ code is reusable. Also, library creation is cleaner in C++. The C++ programming language is considered portable and does not require the use of a specific piece of hardware or just one operating system.

 

Another important feature of C++ is the use of classes. Classes help programmers with the organization of their code. They can also be beneficial in helping programmers to avoid mistakes. However, there are times when mistakes do slip through. When this happens, classes can be instrumental in finding bugs and correcting them.

 

The original C++ compiler, called Cfront, was written in the C++ programming language. C++ compilation is considered efficient and fast. Its speed can be attributed to its high-level features in conjunction with its low-level components. When compared to other computer programming languages, C++ can be viewed as quite short. This is due to the fact that C++ leans towards the use of special characters instead of keywords.

 

 

 

RGSS Info

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rgss (because I'm to lazy to type at this point)

 

Edited July 21, 2011 by Noob Saibot

[Dai 0]

I dunno if this helps, but RGSS or C++ are what would be more fit for making a game. (Although to use RGSS you would need RPG Maker XP/VX) The first 4 languages are better suited for web design. There are also MANY MANY MANY MANY other programming languages that exist, and that could be used in making a game. If you have not programmed before, I might suggest either learning Java or Visual Basic as a good introductory language to programming, but feel free to start anywhere. (I MIGHT advise against learning C/C++/C# first however, these languages are generally more complex and powerful than most popular languages, although also much faster)

Thanks for all the replies! I read somewhere that PHP and MySQL is needed to create fb games, they didnt mention anything about C++. Isnt C++ learnt by college students?I'm pretty sure my brothers use this..but cant be bothered to ask them lol. So, in that case didnt the college students learn about C++ first?Is it even possible to master any of these programming languages by just going online and not ask someone else in real life?

Edited July 21, 2011 by Dai

[Noob Saibot 38]

Thanks for all the replies! I read somewhere that PHP and MySQL is needed to create fb games, they didnt mention anything about C++. Isnt C++ learnt by college students?I'm pretty sure my brothers use this..but cant be bothered to ask them lol. So, in that case didnt the college students learn about C++ first?Is it even possible to master any of these programming languages by just going online and not ask someone else in real life?

 

There are plenty of people who learn with out going to college. In fact college merely grants you to get a job (unless you have an excellent Portfolio).

 

Self Teach Book; C++

Self Teach, Ruby