What do you need to build a website?
by Riyad
We recently started a skills-sharing day at Pomegranite where we set aside an hour on a Thursday and take turns teaching each other new things based on our various skill sets.
This past week was my turn and I decided to run through an overview of some of the main elements that need to be in place before you can build a website.
Don’t be overwhelmed by all the technical terms – Sarah, Liz and Carla, all English Lit grads, made it through the class relatively unscathed.
Domain
– This is the name people will go to – www.pomegranite.co.za – like an address.
– Extensions – .co.uk, .com, .org – are not really technically different, however they are used to indicate the type of organisation/region. For example .org would be best suited to an NGO but nothing stops a business using it.
– This is registered online via a hosting company or service provider
– It is renewed annually, almost like paying rent for the name
– If you don’t renew the domain it can be acquired by someone else after a certain period
– Domains are basically a friendly way to name an IP.
Hosting
– This is the physical location that will be assigned to your domain name
– You can physically build your own server to host or use a third party service
– Each server has its own type of environment and software running on it
– Generally 2GB of space is needed for an average size website
Flat websites or database driven website
Flat websites
– Flat websites refer to sites that only consist of the physical files on the server
– Flat sites have all content, styling, HTML, etc, physically rendered in each file
– Flat sites are updated manually by updating an HTML file or JS file or the like
– Flat sites are generally only used for small sites as they can be cumbersome to update
Database driven websites
– Refers to any site that houses content or info in a database
– Runs on a templating structure
– Calls are made in files to display relevant info
– Variables are used to detect what to display based on one or many conditions
Server environment
– Refers to the type of software or OS running on a hosting
– There are two main types: LAMP stack, Windows server
– If you want to use an open source solution for a website you need a LAMP stack
– If you are building a custom online product using ASP or Visual Studio or the like you will most likely need a Windows environment
– Open source tools such as WordPress and Joomla will not work properly in a Windows hosting environment and vice versa
– It is very important when choosing or setting up a hosting environment that you know what the main technology base will be.