Datasheet

Figure 1-2

The creation of server-side mashups can be a little more complicated— you need to set up and configure

all the elements you need on a server first. Despite this, the advantage of server-side mashups is clear—

your users don’t need any special software. All they need to view your creation is a web browser.

Understanding Mashup Tools

and Technologies

Many different tools and technologies are useful in the masher’s toolkit. In this next section, we take a

brief look at a few of these and see how they might be of use. In a book of this size, it clearly isn’t possi-

ble to provide full tutorials on each of the subjects mentioned here — each one could easily warrant a

whole book in its own right, so here we can do little more than give them a passing mention. Some of

these topics are also discussed in more detail in later sections of the book where they are put to use,

while Appendix D contains many useful references if you want more detailed information.

HTML, XHTML, and CSS

You almost certainly already have at least a passing familiarity with this family of technologies, starting

with HTML, or

Hypertext Markup Language, which provides the foundation for the entire Web. HTML is

a simple, text-based markup language used to structure documents published on the World Wide Web.

The HTML standards are defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and can all be found on

the W3C web site at

http://www.w3.org/.

User

Web Server

Request Web Page

Request Data

Chapter 1: Rewriting the Web

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