The usefulness and use of a web application largely depends on the technologies that were used in the process of its creation. The selection of specific solutions is the most important decision a designer has to make.
Of course, all kinds of technologies have evolved over the last few decades. It was possible, among others, thanks to an extremely dynamic web apps development of the equipment used by programmers. Every now and then it opened new possibilities, which specialists, of course, took advantage of. As a result, today we can name many technologies useful at specific stages of application design. We will try to characterize the most important of them.
CGI – Common Gateway Interface
An interface whose task is primarily to improve communication between programs and server software. What is important, thanks to CGI all used programs can be written in any language – the only important thing is that its compiler is available on the server used.
Most CGI-compliant programs and applications are written using the Perl language, but there’s nothing to stop you from using a C++ or other compiled language as well. Despite its many advantages, CGI also has its drawbacks – mainly related to the use of different hardware or software platforms. This can cause problems with proper operation.
NSAPI – Netscape Server API
This is an interface from Netscape. It contains a set of functions that make it possible to extend the functionality of the server freely. What is important, it works faster than CGI and offers more solutions.
All applications created on the basis of NSAPI can share resources with the server, they can also be run as a server process, which significantly improves their speed. NSAPI interface is also very stable.
An extremely frequently used scripting language. It is relatively easy to create web applications with the use of PHP language, designers also have access to many useful functions, as well as solutions that definitely facilitate integration with databases.
All this makes that a huge part of currently available web applications was created using PHP. We are talking about not only simple programs, but also very advanced projects. What is important, deciding on the PHP language, we can count on a very rich technical support.
OWAS – Oracle Web Application Server
Technology developed by Oracle. It is nothing else than a server that allows you to generate complex websites and applications. All thanks to the possibility of creating procedures in PL/SQL language. Thanks to this, the access to data is very wide, and the very operation of the server is efficient.
OWAS, however, has its drawbacks, which are primarily associated with low code transparency, which significantly impedes the management of the implemented project.
ASP – Active Server Pages
This is a technology that was designed and introduced by Microsoft. What is important, ASP allows you to write a program in one of several supported languages. These include C+, Python, VBScript, and Ruby.
ASP is used to design dynamic solutions. ASP is used to design dynamic solutions. In addition to the above mentioned languages, other scripting engines can be installed.
ASP.NET
This is the successor of ASP technology, it allows to create dynamic pages. It works on the basis of .NET technology. In addition to web pages and web applications, this technology allows the development of XML Web Services type applications.
The main advantages of ASP.NET are high performance and stability, which of course has a huge impact on the process of designing various solutions.
Java
Extremely popular programming language, which is widely used during development of various web applications. Java environment is very safe, it contains many elements of event-driven, concurrent, object-oriented and structural programming.
So you can boldly say that it is extremely versatile, which is confirmed by the huge number of technologies that have been developed and developed based on Java. Among them you can mention JSP (Java Server Pages), which allows you to create dynamic web documents in different formats or WebMacro.
As you can see, the choice of technologies allowing to prepare a web application is very wide. It is always worth keeping in mind the specificity of the solution we are designing, as well as all the possibilities guaranteed by the above-mentioned techniques.
