| Welcome to Questy's Links and Lessons |
| Why Beyond HTML? |
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HTML documents are plain text files, or static documents that live on a computer connected to the Internet, ready to be viewed. A Web server waits for and sends out those files in response to requests from Web browsers. There is nothing dynamic or interactive about these documents--they are "flat" files. If you want your site to do something dynamic or interactive, like handling information in an HTML form, you have to run a separate program outside your Web server. The Web is a client-server environment, where Web pages are stored on and retrieved from a server, while the browser on a user's machine is the client. Your Web-based applications can run on the server, the client, or both. As you decide whether to run a server-side CGI or a client-side script, you'll find that each option has advantages and disadvantages. Dynamic updating and interactivity features, such as validating a data entry field, are best done with a client-side scripting language like JavaScript, which is more responsive and delivers immediate feedback to the user. However, a client-side script runs only on the user's machine. No information can pass from the client to the server, which you'll need if you want to store information in a server database or run server applications (to automatically generate and send email, for example). Also, if you want to collect information about your Web site's visitors, you'll also have to handle this on the server side. If your site has to interact directly with a user, client-side scripts are the way to go. But if you need to store information in a server database or provide customized Web pages, a server-side script is usually the better solution. As you learn more about different scripts, and their uses, you will also see the advantages and disadvantages of each. |
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