There are mainly 2 kinds of scripting on the internet - client side scripts that executes at the users machine, and serverside. Serverside language is script/language which runs on the server and not the browsers machine. there are many types of languages that can be used and all depend on the machine hosting the website. Some of th emore common languages are : ASP (and ASP.net) PHP Perl Python Cold Fusion Each language is different - either slightly or completely, much like real languages. Your choice of serverside language depends on what you want to do with the script you are writing and how much time you want to spend learning the language - for example ASP is much easier to pick up than a more logical and detailed language such as PHP. Serverside scripting allows you to create many wonderful things like hit counters and guestbooks. They aid in communication with storing information about users and actions they have taken, in databases such as MYSQL and Access. if you ware wanting to get into web development then learning at least one serverside language is a must for you.

A server-side language is one whose code is meant to run on the server which holds the page content; the opposite is a client-side language, which is run on the computer of the user viewing the content. The main advantage of server-side languages is that they are almost always more powerful. Why? Mostly because they're not relying on the capabilities of an unknown system that could be anything from a 286 to a dual P4. More specifically, it doesn't rely on the interpretation of that language by the browser; because it will always run on the server, the programmer can test it and know exactly what it will do. Common examples of server-side languages are PHP and Perl. The main advantage of client-side languages is that they can interact with the user in realtime without making another call to the server. Put differently, if you click a button and something changes immediately, it's a client-side language. If the page reloads with the changes, it's probably server-side (client-side languages CAN reload the page, they just don't have to). That works because by the time you load the page the first time, your computer already has the site's script on it. The browser just runs it locally and makes adjustments to the page as needed. Common examples of client-side languages are CSS (which is a markup language--the rest of these are programming languages) and Javascript. Understanding the above is the easiest way for a user to know which is which. If you don't use any features of the language which give it away, they could look at the file extension (e.g. answerbag.com/a_edit.php is PHP and therefore server-side) or page source (client-side code is part of the page and will be visible in the source; server-side code isn't and won't).