外文文献及翻译：JavaandtheInternet

1Java and the InternetIf Java is, in fact, yet another computer programming language, you may question why it is so important and why it is being promoted as a revolutionary step in computer programming. The answer isn’t immediately obvious if you’re coming from a traditional programming perspective. Although Java is very useful for solving traditional stand-alone programming problems, it is also important because it will solve programming problems on the World Wide Web.1. Client-side programmingThe 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 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 or “” the data on the 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 is 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.Many powerful Web sites today are built strictly on CGI, and you can in fact do nearly anything with it. 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 2be 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 per with consistency because a 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 . You press the button on a page; the data is shipped back to the server; the server starts a CGI program that discovers an error, ats an HTML page ining 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 a