Glossary of Terms I
HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Mechanism)
- A stateless transport protocol allowing control information and data to be transmitted between web clients and servers.
Web Client
- Originally web clients displayed HTML and related pages but now they support Java Applets that can be programmed to give web clients the necessary capabilities to support general enterprise computing. The support of signed applets in recent browsers has removed crude security restrictions, which handicapped previous use of applets.
Web Servers
- Originally Web Servers supported HTTP requests for information - basically HTML pages but included the invocation of general server side programs using the very simple but arcane CGI - Common Gateway Interface. A new generation of Java servers have enhanced capabilities including server side Java program enhancements (Servlets) and support of stateful permanent communication channels.