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iNet//Web Solutions
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When web site programming languages became capable of "talking" with SQL databases, Dynamic Sites were born. The basic concept is this: as much of the content and the "look-and-feel" of a site as the programmer wants, can be dynamic - it can be updated by changing the contents of a database table. Two quick examples ... if you change the field "BaseFontColor" in the database table "Home Page" from 'red' to 'blue', your whole home page will have blue text ... when you change the "Price" field of the "Products" database table entry for "Blue Jeans" from '49.95' to '54.95', the very next visitor will see the new price. It's both that simple and that complex. Before going too much farther, if you haven't already stepped through our E-Commerce Demo, you should ... it will arm you with at least a nodding acquaintance with some of the terminology we'll be using. A dynamic database-driven web site is made up of the following elements: 1. an HTML "framework" script for each page 2. a "higher-level" language to do the work 3. an SQL database 4. if you're selling online, a way to get paid 5. a Control Panel As we have pointed out elsewhere, HTML is a "layout" language that tells your browser how to display text and images. HTML is very good at that, but it can't even add "2 plus 2"! That's why we use other, "higher-level" languages to search the database, calculate shipping and sales tax, obtain charge authorizations from the Banks, and to actually generate the HTML that your browser will use to display the results of all this work. So the "higher-level language" (#2 above) looks up information in the "SQL database" (#3 above), does the work like calculations and sorting, and plugs the results into the "HTML framework scripts" (#1 above). Should the shopper decide to buy those $54.95 Blue Jeans and a couple of other products, the "higher-level language" will keep track of the purchases in a shopping cart, gather the shopper's information for billing and shipping, get charge card approval (#4 above), and advise you of the sale (#5 above). In a nutshell, that's a simple overview of how a full-blown dynamic database-driven web site works. If you're interested in more details, you can read through some of the "White Papers" from our past Newsletters: • Online Catalogs • Secure Ordering • Shopping Carts 
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