Characteristics

1. Formats and protocols.

FORMATS:   

A command-line interface (CLI) is a mechanism for interacting with a computer operating system or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks.

example : HTML, bash (Bourne-Again shell), and CHAIN

A graphical user interface (GUI, sometimes pronounced gooey,) is a type of user interface that allows users tointeract with electronic devices with images rather than text commands.

example: Visual Basic, JAXFront, and Jvider

PROTOCOLS:

          Mozilla Firefox - Fast and safe browser

          Google Chrome - Fastest Browser

          Opera - Handles internet-related tasks easily

          Safari - puts emphasis on browsing.

         Internet Explorer - Dependable internet broser.

2. Power. HTML is limited in its computational power. This is intentional in its design, as it prevents the execution of dangerous programs on the client machine. However, Web programmers, as they have become more sophisticated in their applications, have increasingly been hamstrung by these limits. Tasks unable to be coded in HTML must either be executed on the server in some other language, or on the client in a program in some other language downloaded from a server. Both solutions are awkward for the programmer, often produce a sub-optimal segmentation of a application across program modules, both client and server, and reintroduce safety considerations.

3. Performance. Because of an HTML program's limited functionality, and the resulting shift of computational load to the server, certain types of applications perform poorly, especially in the context of clients connected to the Internet with rather low bandwidth dialup communications (<=28.8Kbps).

4. Platform Independence Given the diversity of operating systems and hardware platforms currently in use on the Web, a great efficiency results from only dealing with a single form of an application. The success of HTML has proven this, and Java has seconded it. The ability to deliver a platform-independent applicationis of great appeal to developers, who spend a large portion of their resources developing and maintaining versions of their products for the different hardware/software platform combinations. With Java, one set of sources and one byte compiled executable, can be maintained for all hw/sw platforms.

 5. Safety. Viruses have proven that executing binary code acquired from an untrusted, or even moderately trusted, source is dangerous. Code that is downloaded or uploaded from random sites on the web should not be allowed to damage the user's local environment. Downloading binary code compiled from conventional languages is clearly unsafe, due to the power of the languages. Even if such languages were constrained to some ostensibly safe subset, there is no way to verify that only the safe subset was used or that the compiler used was trustworthy (after all, it is under someone else's control).

Conclusion :

        I think safety is the most important characteristic of a web programming language. It is because it provides security for the user.