8/30/00
CSIT: IT1 Web Structure http://aspen.csit.fsu.edu/it1fall00
31
What is a Web Client?
Originally we thought of Web Systems as a set of communicating objects
with
Not much on client linking to UNIX processes invoked by
CGI
Then we excitedly got balanced client server
applications with JavaScript and Java applets on client which was faster as no
network traffic for small local
actions
Servlets,
Enterprise Javabeans and CORBA provided robust middle tier programming model
But browsers
never became a good programming environment
as actions (say of JavaScript) undefined or
quality (of Java virtual machine in browser)
poor.
So browsers
are just display technology and
one should use servers or applications
for software
Java
Server Pages provide similar functionality
to Java Applets with Java
running outside browser in a nice robust server
This is the old way we built applications done with
faster networks and more elegant
implementation (we used to invoke Perl CGI scripts to provide dynamic web pages but this was too slow)