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DEVELOPING
WEB APPLICATIONS WITH
SOLID
Web Engine

Web application development consists of the tasks of creating input forms, sending queries to databases, and building new HTML pages from the results fetched from a database. The database and the web server are different parts of a web application. The web server manages HTML pages and the database manages data in relational or object format.

Web application development tools provide the means of combining web servers and databases. Two separate interfaces are used for combining; one to the Web server and one to the database. Below are descriptions of commonly used interfaces and tools. More complete explanations on how these methods can be used in combination with SOLID Server can be seen by following the links to other documents.

Web Server Interfaces

Various Web server products provide a number of mechanisms for integrating code to execute on a Web server. The server programming mechanisms can be grouped to following basic types:

CGI CGI (Common Gateway Interface), the Internet de-facto standard interface for invoking server-based scripts or compiled programs at the request of clients. It is currently the most common way of providing interactive Web pages such as forms for entering data or documents generated dynamically from data retrieved from a database.

The CGI interface is available with practically all major Web servers.

Server plug-in APIs Server plug-in APIs, that allow developers to extend the native capabilities of the Web server. The server plug-in API is a low-level function interface that provides developers a great deal of control over the server's behavior by creating high-performance extensions. For example, developers may choose to implement their own mechanisms for access control, user authentication, or error logging.

The two major plug-in APIs currently on the market are Netscape's NSAPI and Microsoft's ISAPI.

Java and JavaScript Java and JavaScript allow the user to write Java and JavaScript code that executes on the client or server. Using these facilities, application developers can create applications that may access servers, clients, and databases.

Java and JavaScript are different scripting languages. Java originates from JavaSoft Inc. and the source for JavaScript is Netscape Communications. JavaScript differs greatly from Java, but like Java JavaScript it is essentially a simplified version of C++.

ActiveX ActiveX provides many of the same capabilities as Java. ActiveX is basically a new architecture for Microsoft OLE Custom Controls (OCX), modified to provide security services and other features required when using the Web.

ActiveX applications can be used in Netscape's and Microsoft's Web browsers and servers. ActiveX technology is still in development. Latest information can be found from Microsoft's ActiveX pages.

SOLID Server can be used with ActiveX through the ODBC interface.

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