Complete novice to server-side scripts needs recommendation

[jackacohen]

I'm fairly familiar with HTML, javascript and CSS. But I've never tried to do anything server-side.

Now I want to put up a web page with a table in which EMPTY cells allow users to enter data which then becomes the text for that cell, able to be seen by future users.

Can you tell me what "language" I need to learn to accomplish this? In particular, is SQL a likely candidate?

TIA

[tracknut]

You're going to need a script which receives and parses the table fields from the user, and that is most likely written in PHP or ASP. Then you need some way to store the fields so that the next time a user visits the site you have them available, that could be anything from a flat file to a database (e.g. MySQL), and then you need something to pull the fields from the store and display a table to the next user, which would be PHP/ASP again.

The choice as to the server language is dependent on what's available on your server, probably most would recommend PHP. The choice of a file versus database is a technical one based on the volume and complexity of the data, but if you choose a database you again need to ensure that database is available on your server.

Dave