Programming Languages

Actionscript
The language used to talk to Macromedia Flash, and the language that needs to be used to be able to create anything in Macromedia Flash. It looks similar to JavaScript, but its use is completely different.

Some people say that if you already know JavaScript, it is extremely easy to transform those skills to ActionScript as it is very similar.

ASP (Active Server Pages)
A language used to create interactive web pages. Used to create complex websites such as auction sites and "shop" websites, all the actions of the language are performed at the server, and then the results are shown in your browser. Can only be used on Windows servers.

PHP is widely regarded to do a similar job, and is the preferred server software for most web developers.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Used at the same time as HTML, CSS can be used to control the way text is displayed on a website.

However, it is beginning to become more popular amongst web designers to use CSS to completely control the layout of a web page.

CSS is still not displayed exactly the same in the all the browsers though, a point that must be taken into account when creating web pages using CSS.

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
This is the language used to create web pages. Every web page must have the HTML language in it for it to display as a web page. When a web browser views HTML, it doesn't show the code, it shows the web page.

It is widely considered to be fairly easy to learn HTML, as it was designed to be easy to write when the Internet was first created.

An HTML page can be created using a simple text program like Notepad.

JavaScript
Usually added to a HTML page, this is another language (developed by Netscape) that adds functionality to a web page. JavaScript is usually used to control the size of windows and create rollover buttons.

JavaScript should not be confused with Java. Although they share the name, they are both completely different programming languages.

PHP
A language mainly used to talk to databases that are online. This allows web designers to create interactive web pages, such as contact forms and forums.

While its function is similar to ASP, PHP works on both Linux and Windows servers, whereas ASP only works on Windows.

It's also free and open source.