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INTRODUCTION TO WEB
ENGINEERING
The World Wide Web has become a major delivery platform for
a variety of complex and sophisticated enterprise applications in
several domains. In addition to their inherent multifaceted
functionality, these Web applications exhibit complex behavior
and place some unique demands on their usability, performance,
security and ability to grow and evolve.
Much of the data delivered over the web today, however, is dynamic in
nature. Up-to-the-minute stock prices and the latest weather reports can be
viewed. A user’s personal email messages and appointment calendar can be
managed.
Dynamic web content, then, requires that the web server does some
additional processing of the corresponding request in order to generate a
customized response. In addition to the URL of the request, response might
be dependent upon additional parameter values included with the
request. Alternatively, it might be based on the date and time, the location
on the network from which the request was made, or on some
representation of the identity of the user making the request.
Pages over the internet can be classified as :
Web pages that use the first method must use presentation technology
called, in a broader sense, rich interfaced pages. Client-side scripting
languages like JavaScript, used for Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and Flash
technologies respectively, are frequently used to orchestrate media types
(sound, animations, changing text, etc.) of the presentation. The scripting
also allows use of remote scripting, a technique by which the DHTML page
requests additional information from a server, using a hidden Frame,
XMLHttpRequests, or a Web service.
Web pages that use to the second method are often created with the help of
server-side languages such as PHP, Perl, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, ColdFusion
and other languages. These server-side languages typically use the Common
Gateway Interface (CGI) to produce dynamic web pages.
Client-side scripting generally refers to the class
of computer programs on the web that
are executed client-side, by the user's web browser,
instead of server-side (on the web server).
Client-side scripts are often embedded within
an HTML document (hence known as an "embedded script"), but
they may also be contained in a separate file, which is referenced
by the document (or documents) that use it (hence known as an
"external script"). Upon request, the necessary files are sent to
the user's computer by the web server (or servers) on which they
reside. The user's web browser executes the script, then displays
the document, including any visible output from the script.
Client-side scripts may also contain instructions for the browser
to follow if the user interacts with the document in a certain way,
e.g., clicks a certain button. These instructions can be followed
without further communication with the server, though they
may require such communication.
In contrast, server-side scripts, written in languages such
as Perl, PHP, and server-side VBScript, are executed by the web
server when the user requests a document. They produce output
in a format understandable by web browsers (usually HTML),
which is then sent to the user's computer. The user cannot see
the script's source code (unless the author publishes the code
separately), and may not even be aware that a script was
executed.
To summarize Development of web based
applications can be split into many areas and a typical
and basic categorization might consist of:
Client Side Coding
AJAX Provides new methods of using JavaScript, and other
languages to improve the user experience.