Part 1: Essential Development Tools for becoming a web programmer

We will start our discussion by setting up a development environment. (This tutorial is a part of the series – “How to become a web programmer in 4 easy steps”)
For every budding web developer, it is extremely important to get himself/herself familiarised with the basic setup required for client-server architecture. On the client-side only a browser is needed. Since all operating systems come with at least a browser, we can concentrate on setting up the server part of the story.
Here’s what you will need:

1. A server – most popular being Apache
2. A programming language – PHP being the most popular among the many available
3. A database manager – MySQL being the most popular

Besides their popularity, all of them are free to use.

How to get them

Either you can install them separately or you can opt for packages that package everything inside them. We will concentrate on the second option since it is very easy to setup for a beginner.
In the pre-packaged section, you have two choices.

or

WAMPP and XAMPP serve similar purpose except that they come from two different vendors. Their installation is fairly straight forward and ample documentation is available in respective sites.

How to get familiarised

To get an overview of the various technologies involved, follow the links.

1. Client – Server architecture
2. Apache
3. PHP
4. DBMS – Database Management Systems
5. MySQL
6. phpMyAdmin

What’s next?

Now that the client-server architecture is setup, next we will talk about

–        choosing a text editor

and

–        procuring lookup materials

in Part 2 – “Editing tools and Lookup materials for becoming a web programmer”.