
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.
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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.
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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++.
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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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