the client may choose to go and check things out before you've updated or debugged things. Security holes may appear while you're testing.Īnd even if the worst case scenarios don't happen. A simple mispelling can result in the site getting locked down, forcing you (or someone else) to scramble to regain access and undo what you did. But it's not recommended no matter how experienced you are. Technically speaking, yes you can absolutely test everything you want using the web site itself. Can't I Just Test Everything on the Web Site? And since a server is needed to execute the dynamic, server-side code and turn it into HTML, this means you absolutely need a test server to preview and test the various aspects of your site. And quite often these mistakes can't be found until you see the site running. Unless the only language in which you ever build web sites is 100%-static HTML then, yes, you need a test server.Īnd before you say you're an expert in PHP, ASP, ColdFusion or any other language – there are still mistakes to be made. But I often encourage my clients to also set up remote testing servers, which I will also cover today.

I prefer the local server route, and that's what I am going to focus on today.

So, which type is best for testing? That's really up to you. It might be a paid hosting plan, another computer on a local area network, or even a free hosting plan regardless, a remote server is a server that is not on your computer. A local server is, as you might have guessed, hosted locally on your own computer while a remote server is hosted elsewhere. There are two server environments to choose from: local and remote. So regardless of your experience and expertise at any or all of the server-side languages, you cannot preview that site you're working on until it is living in a server environment. I will tell you that they all require a server to run.

So I'm not going to go into which server-side language is best for you, which one you should use, or even how to pick the best one in this article. There are all sorts of languages out there. It's just code that's processed on the server before being sent to website visitors. Well, if you're building a web site that uses even the simplest of databases, then you're using a server-side language. So, now you're wondering what a server-side language is, and whether or not you're using one. Sounds pretty obvious spelled out like that, right? It's right there in the name. Why You Need a Local Testing Server (and How To Do It)Īny web site that uses server-side language requires a server to run.

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