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294 SOFTWAREDESIGN ANDIMPLEMENTATION IN THEWEBENVIRONMENTGLOSSARY
Many of the definitions in this glossary are derived in
whole or part from TechTarget’s definitions, including
“whatis.com” (TechTarget, 2003). More details can be
found on their Web site for some of these terms.Active Server Pages (ASPs) A scripted page technology
that uses HTML templates that can include program-
ming statements. ASPs predated Microsoft’s .NET but
have been folded into the platform.
Application program interface (API) The specific
method prescribed by a computer operating system
or by an application program by which a programmer
writing an application program can make requests of
the operating system or another application.
Application server A server program in a computer in a
distributed network that provides the business logic for
an application program. The term is sometimes used
to refer to the software, sometimes the hardware, and
sometimes both.
Browser extensions A compiled program that is writ-
ten to a browser API, usually for extending the capabil-
ity of a client browser to play new media forms such as
audio or video. For Netscape browsers, such programs
are dubbed plug-ins. Internet Explorer browsers use
ActiveX controls and other kinds of plug-ins. For the
J2EE platform, the equivalent is a Java applet.
Bytecode An intermediate language, similar to com-
puter object code but usually at a higher level of
abstraction. It is interpreted by a program, usually re-
ferred to as a virtual machine, rather than by the ac-
tual hardware. Java is translated to a bytecode that
is optimized for fast interpretation that can be exe-
cuted on a number of platforms by the Java virtual
machine.
C# (pronounced “C-sharp”) An object-oriented pro-
gramming language from Microsoft that combines ele-
ments of C++ with Visual Basic. C# is has many features
in common with Java.
Common gateway interface (CGI) A protocol that de-
fines how data is sent back and forth between Web
clients and external server-side programs. Input in
CGI comes from HTML form data and HTTP head-
ers (termed environment variables) and output set by
HTTP headers indicating multi-purpose Internet mail
extensions (MIME) type and common Web formats
such as HTML.
Client–server computing A model of computing in
which one computer or software component (the
server) manages and provides access to resources to
another (the client) by responding to requests.
COM+ The .NET middle-tier infrastructure designed to
support business components.
Compiled (Web-server) modules A compiled program
that that is built into a Web server API such as Apache
Modules or Microsoft IIS Internet server application
program interface filters or modules. Input and output
with server modules is similar to CGI programs but
generally is much faster and happens at a much lower
level. For the J2EE platform, such modules are dubbed
servlets.Cookies A text string that a Web application stores on a
client through the client’s Web browser. The intent is to
use the string as an index to retrieve information about
the user who is associated with the cookie, thereby
keeping track of state information that is passed be-
tween a server and the user.
Dynamic HTML A collective term for HTML tags and
options that support animation user interaction. The
tags and options include the ability to respond to
user events client-side using BOM–DOM (browser ob-
ject model–document object model) and scripting lan-
guages such as JavaScript.
E-business A company that does all or an important
part of its business over the Internet.
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) Java classes that follow
a well-defined set of rules and conventions that allow
them to be installed into and executed within an EJB
container, which provides services such as life-cycle
and resource management, transaction management,
data persistence, and security.
Hypertext markup language (HTML) The most com-
mon language used to create Web pages.
Hypertext transfer protocol The fundamental network
protocol that Web browsers and servers use to commu-
nicate. It is a lightweight, connectionless protocol.
Intermediary language (IL) The intermediate lan-
guage used by the.NET platform.
The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EEE) platform A
collection of conventions, plug-ins, and library pack-
ages that support Web software. It includes Java
servlets, JSPs, Java beans, and EJBs.
Java A general purpose object-oriented programming
language. Java is extended by libraries that contain
packages and code that support Web software.
Java Server Pages A scripted page technology that uses
HTML templates that can include Java statements.
Java Server Pages are first translated into Java servlet
classes and then compiled and run as servlets.
Java Applets A Java class that can be included in an
HTML page. The Java bytecode is transferred to the
client’s computer and then executed by the browser’s
Java Virtual Machine (JVM). One common use of ap-
plets is to produce high functionality GUIs.
Java Beans A Java class that is used to create reusable
software components. A Java Bean is expected to have
three characteristics: (1) it is a public class, (b) it has
a public constructor that has no arguments, and (c)
it has public methods to assign and retrieve values of
objects called properties. By convention, the methods
are called get() and set().
Java Data Base Connectivity (JDBC) An application
program interface (API) specification for connecting
Java programs to common databases. Database com-
mands in SQL are embedded in Java programming
statements and the API handles most of the interac-
tion invisibly.
Java Servlets A compiled module technology; a Java
class that inherits from the servlet base class and exe-
cutes as lightweight threads within a plug-in called a
servlet container. Servlets run on the server, accept re-
quests from the Web server, and generate responses for
the client, usually in the form of HTML pages.