Client-side programming
The Web’s initial server-browser design provided for interactive content, but the interactivity was completely provided by the server. The server produced static pages for the client browser, which would simply interpret and display them. Basic HyperText Markup Language (HTML) contains simple mechanisms for data gathering: text-entry boxes, check boxes, radio boxes, lists and drop-down lists, as well as a button that can only be programmed to reset the data on the form or “submit” the data on the form back to the server. This submission passes through the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) provided on all Web servers. The text within the submission tells CGI what to do with it. The most common action is to run a program located on the server in a directory that’s typically called “cgi-bin.” (If you watch the address window at the top of your browser when you push a button on a Web page, you can sometimes see “cgi-bin” within all the gobbledygook there.) These programs can be written in most languages. Perl has been a common choice because it is designed for text manipulation and is interpreted, so it can be installed on any server regardless of processor or operating system. However, Python (my favorite—see www.Python.org) has been making inroads because of its greater power and simplicity.
Many powerful Web sites today are built strictly on CGI, and you can in fact do nearly anything with CGI. However, Web sites built on CGI programs can rapidly become overly complicated to maintain, and there is also the problem of response time. The response of a CGI program depends on how much data must be sent, as well as the load on both the server and the Internet. (On top of this, starting a CGI program tends to be slow.) The initial designers of the Web did not foresee how rapidly this bandwidth would be exhausted for the kinds of applications people developed. For example, any sort of dynamic graphing is nearly impossible to perform with consistency because a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) file must be created and moved from the server to the client for each version of the graph. And you’ve no doubt had direct experience with something as simple as validating the data on an input form. You press the submit button on a page; the data is shipped back to the server; the server starts a CGI program that discovers an error, formats an HTML page informing you of the error, and then sends the page back to you; you must then back up a page and try again. Not only is this slow, it’s inelegant.
The solution is client-side programming. Most machines that run Web browsers are powerful engines capable of doing vast work, and with the original static HTML approach they are sitting there, just idly waiting for the server to dish up the next page. Client-side programming means that the Web browser is harnessed to do whatever work it can, and the result for the user is a much speedier and more interactive experience at your Web site.
The problem with discussions of client-side programming is that they aren’t very different from discussions of programming in general. The parameters are almost the same, but the platform is different; a Web browser is like a limited operating system. In the end, you must still program, and this accounts for the dizzying array of problems and solutions produced by client-side programming. The rest of this section provides an overview of the issues and approaches in client-side programming.
Plug-ins
One of the most significant steps forward in client-side programming is the development of the plug-in. This is a way for a programmer to add new functionality to the browser by downloading a piece of code that plugs itself into the appropriate spot in the browser. It tells the browser “from now on you can perform this new activity.” (You need to download the plug-in only once.) Some fast and powerful behavior is added to browsers via plug-ins, but writing a plug-in is not a trivial task, and isn’t something you’d want to do as part of the process of building a particular site. The value of the plug-in for client-side programming is that it allows an expert programmer to develop a new language and add that language to a browser without the permission of the browser manufacturer. Thus, plug-ins provide a “back door” that allows the creation of new client-side programming languages (although not all languages are implemented as plug-ins).
Scripting languages
Plug-ins resulted in an explosion of scripting languages. With a scripting language, you embed the source code for your client-side program directly into the HTML page, and the plug-in that interprets that language is automatically activated while the HTML page is being displayed. Scripting languages tend to be reasonably easy to understand and, because they are simply text that is part of an HTML page, they load very quickly as part of the single server hit required to procure that page. The trade-off is that your code is exposed for everyone to see (and steal). Generally, however, you aren’t doing amazingly sophisticated things with scripting languages, so this is not too much of a hardship.
This points out that the scripting languages used inside Web browsers are really intended to solve specific types of problems, primarily the creation of richer and more interactive graphical user interfaces (GUIs). However, a scripting language might solve 80 percent of the problems encountered in client-side programming. Your problems might very well fit completely within that 80 percent, and since scripting languages can allow easier and faster development, you should probably consider a scripting language before looking at a more involved solution such as Java or ActiveX programming.
The most commonly discussed browser scripting languages are JavaScript (which has nothing to do with Java; it’s named that way just to grab some of Java’s marketing momentum), VBScript (which looks like Visual BASIC), and Tcl/Tk, which comes from the popular cross-platform GUI-building language. There are others out there, and no doubt more in development.
JavaScript is probably the most commonly supported. It comes built into both Netscape Navigator and the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Unfortunately, the flavor of JavaScript on the two browsers can vary widely (the Mozilla browser, freely downloadable from www.Mozilla.org, supports the ECMAScript standard, which may one day become universally supported). In addition, there are probably more JavaScript books available than there are for the other browser languages, and some tools automatically create pages using JavaScript. However, if you’re already fluent in Visual BASIC or Tcl/Tk, you’ll be more productive using those scripting languages rather than learning a new one. (You’ll have your hands full dealing with the Web issues already.)
Java
If a scripting language can solve 80 percent of the client-side programming problems, what about the other 20 percent—the “really hard stuff?” Java is a popular solution for this. Not only is it a powerful programming language built to be secure, cross-platform, and international, but Java is being continually extended to provide language features and libraries that elegantly handle problems that are difficult in traditional programming languages, such as multithreading, database access, network programming, and distributed computing. Java allows client-side programming via the applet and with Java Web Start.
An applet is a mini-program that will run only under a Web browser. The applet is downloaded automatically as part of a Web page (just as, for example, a graphic is automatically downloaded). When the applet is activated, it executes a program. This is part of its beauty—it provides you with a way to automatically distribute the client software from the server at the time the user needs the client software, and no sooner. The user gets the latest version of the client software without fail and without difficult reinstallation. Because of the way Java is designed, the programmer needs to create only a single program, and that program automatically works with all computers that have browsers with built-in Java interpreters. (This safely includes the vast majority of machines.) Since Java is a full-fledged programming language, you can do as much work as possible on the client before and after making requests of the server. For example, you won’t need to send a request form across the Internet to discover that you’ve gotten a date or some other parameter wrong, and your client computer can quickly do the work of plotting data instead of waiting for the server to make a plot and ship a graphic image back to you. Not only do you get the immediate win of speed and responsiveness, but the general network traffic and load on servers can be reduced, preventing the entire Internet from slowing down.
One advantage a Java applet has over a scripted program is that it’s in compiled form, so the source code isn’t available to the client. On the other hand, a Java applet can be decompiled without too much trouble, but hiding your code is often not an important issue. Two other factors can be important. As you will see later in this book, a compiled Java applet can require extra time to download, if it is large. A scripted program will just be integrated into the Web page as part of its text (and will generally be smaller and reduce server hits). This could be important to the responsiveness of your Web site. Another factor is the all-important learning curve. Regardless of what you’ve heard, Java is not a trivial language to learn. If you’re a VISUAL BASIC programmer, moving to VBScript will be your fastest solution (assuming you can constrain your customers to Windows platforms), and since it will probably solve most typical client/server problems, you might be hard pressed to justify learning Java. If you’re experienced with a scripting language you will certainly benefit from looking at JavaScript or VBScript before committing to Java, because they might fit your needs handily and you’ll be more productive sooner.
.NET and C#
For awhile, the main competitor to Java applets was Microsoft’s ActiveX, although it required that the client be running Windows. Since then, Microsoft has produced a full competitor to Java in the form of the .NET platform and the C# programming language. The .NET platform is roughly the same as the Java virtual machine and Java libraries, and C# bears unmistakable similarities to Java. This is certainly the best work that Microsoft has done in the arena of programming languages and programming environments. Of course, they had the considerable advantage of being able to see what worked well and what didn’t work so well in Java, and build upon that, but build they have. This is the first time since its inception that Java has had any real competition, and if all goes well, the result will be that the Java designers at Sun will take a hard look at C# and why programmers might want to move to it, and will respond by making fundamental improvements to Java.
Currently, the main vulnerability and important question concerning .NET is whether Microsoft will allow it to be completely ported to other platforms. They claim there’s no problem doing this, and the Mono project (www.go-mono.com) has a partial implementation of .NET working on Linux, but until the implementation is complete and Microsoft has not decided to squash any part of it, .NET as a cross-platform solution is still a risky bet.
To learn more about .NET and C#, see Thinking in C# by Larry O’Brien and Bruce Eckel, Prentice Hall 2003.
Security
Automatically downloading and running programs across the Internet can sound like a virus-builder’s dream. If you click on a Web site, you might automatically download any number of things along with the HTML page: GIF files, script code, compiled Java code, and ActiveX components. Some of these are benign; GIF files can’t do any harm, and scripting languages are generally limited in what they can do. Java was also designed to run its applets within a “sandbox” of safety, which prevents it from writing to disk or accessing memory outside the sandbox.
Microsoft’s ActiveX is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Programming with ActiveX is like programming Windows—you can do anything you want. So if you click on a page that downloads an ActiveX component, that component might cause damage to the files on your disk. Of course, programs that you load onto your computer that are not restricted to running inside a Web browser can do the same thing. Viruses downloaded from Bulletin-Board Systems (BBSs) have long been a problem, but the speed of the Internet amplifies the difficulty.
The solution seems to be “digital signatures,” whereby code is verified to show who the author is. This is based on the idea that a virus works because its creator can be anonymous, so if you remove the anonymity, individuals will be forced to be responsible for their actions. This seems like a good plan because it allows programs to be much more functional, and I suspect it will eliminate malicious mischief. If, however, a program has an unintentional destructive bug, it will still cause problems.
The Java approach is to prevent these problems from occurring, via the sandbox. The Java interpreter that lives on your local Web browser examines the applet for any untoward instructions as the applet is being loaded. In particular, the applet cannot write files to disk or erase files (one of the mainstays of viruses). Applets are generally considered to be safe, and since this is essential for reliable client/server systems, any bugs in the Java language that allow viruses are rapidly repaired. (It’s worth noting that the browser software actually enforces these security restrictions, and some browsers allow you to select different security levels to provide varying degrees of access to your system.)
You might be skeptical of this rather draconian restriction against writing files to your local disk. For example, you may want to build a local database or save data for later use offline. The initial vision seemed to be that eventually everyone would get online to do anything important, but that was soon seen to be impractical (although low-cost “Internet appliances” might someday satisfy the needs of a significant segment of users). The solution is the “signed applet” that uses public-key encryption to verify that an applet does indeed come from where it claims it does. A signed applet can still trash your disk, but the theory is that since you can now hold the applet creators accountable, they won’t do vicious things. Java provides a framework for digital signatures so that you will eventually be able to allow an applet to step outside the sandbox if necessary. Chapter 14 contains an example of how to sign an applet.
In addition, Java Web Start is a relatively new way to easily distribute standalone programs that don’t need a web browser in which to run. This technology has the potential of solving many client side problems associated with running programs inside a browser. Web Start programs can either be signed, or they can ask the client for permission every time they are doing something potentially dangerous on the local system. Chapter 14 has a simple example and explanation of Java Web Start.
Digital signatures have missed an important issue, which is the speed that people move around on the Internet. If you download a buggy program and it does something untoward, how long will it be before you discover the damage? It could be days or even weeks. By then, how will you track down the program that’s done it? And what good will it do you at that point?
Internet vs. intranet
The Web is the most general solution to the client/server problem, so it makes sense to use the same technology to solve a subset of the problem, in particular the classic client/server problem within a company. With traditional client/server approaches you have the problem of multiple types of client computers, as well as the difficulty of installing new client software, both of which are handily solved with Web browsers and client-side programming. When Web technology is used for an information network that is restricted to a particular company, it is referred to as an intranet. Intranets provide much greater security than the Internet, since you can physically control access to the servers within your company. In terms of training, it seems that once people understand the general concept of a browser it’s much easier for them to deal with differences in the way pages and applets look, so the learning curve for new kinds of systems seems to be reduced.
The security problem brings us to one of the divisions that seems to be automatically forming in the world of client-side programming. If your program is running on the Internet, you don’t know what platform it will be working under, and you want to be extra careful that you don’t disseminate buggy code. You need something cross-platform and secure, like a scripting language or Java.
If you’re running on an intranet, you might have a different set of constraints. It’s not uncommon that your machines could all be Intel/Windows platforms. On an intranet, you’re responsible for the quality of your own code and can repair bugs when they’re discovered. In addition, you might already have a body of legacy code that you’ve been using in a more traditional client/server approach, whereby you must physically install client programs every time you do an upgrade. The time wasted in installing upgrades is the most compelling reason to move to browsers, because upgrades are invisible and automatic (Java Web Start is also a solution to this problem). If you are involved in such an intranet, the most sensible approach to take is the shortest path that allows you to use your existing code base, rather than trying to recode your programs in a new language.
When faced with this bewildering array of solutions to the client-side programming problem, the best plan of attack is a cost-benefit analysis. Consider the constraints of your problem and what would be the shortest path to your solution. Since client-side programming is still programming, it’s always a good idea to take the fastest development approach for your particular situation. This is an aggressive stance to prepare for inevitable encounters with the problems of program development.
