Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

Internet applications programming 249In effect, people may eventually live “inside” a World WideWeb.Further ReadingHafner, Katie, and Matthew Lyon. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: TheOrigins of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.Internet Society. Available online. URL: http://www.isoc.org.Accessed August 8, 2007.Internet World Stats. Available online. URL: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Accessed August 8, 2007.Okin, J. R. The Internet Revolution: The Not-for-Dummies Guide tothe History, Technology, and Use of the Internet. Winter Harbor,Me.: Ironbound Press, 2005.Segaller, Stephen. Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet. NewYork: TV Books, 1998.Zakon, Robert H. “Hobbes’ Internet Timeline v8.2.” Availableonline. URL: http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/.Accessed August 8, 2007.Internet applications programmingThe growth of the Internet and its centrality in business,education, and other fields has led many programmersto specialize in Internet-related applications. These caninclude the following:• low-level infrastructure (networking [wired and wireless],routing, encryption support, and so on)• Web servers and related software• e-commerce infrastructure (see e-commerce)• interfacing with databases• data analysis and extraction (see data mining)• support for searching (see search engine)• autonomous software to navigate the net (see softwareagent)• Internet-based communications (see texting andinstant messaging and VoIP)• systems to deliver text and media (see streaming,podcasting, rss)• support for collaborative use of the Internet (seeblogs and blogging, social networking, andwikis and Wikipedia)• security software (firewalls, intrusion analysis, etc.)Internet applications programmers use a variety of languagesand other programming tools (often in combination)to implement these applications. Some of the mostcommon are:• C++ is generally used for fundamental applications,particularly those that must work at the system leveland for which speed and efficiency are prerequisites.Examples would include Web servers and browsersand some browser plug-ins (see C++).• Java has largely supplanted C++ as a general-purposelanguage for programming small applications(“applets”) that are hosted by Web sites and run onthe user’s browser. With a syntax that differs in only afew respects from C++, Java can also be used to writestandalone applications (see Java).• HTML is not really a full-fledged programming language,but it defines the layout and formatting of Webpages, as well as providing for hyperlinks and theembedding of applications. In many cases, HTML nolonger has to be coded directly but can be generatedfrom word processor-like page design programs (seedntml, html, and xhtml).• Extensible markup language (see xml) has becomethe preferred format for structuring a variety of databoth for automatic processing (see semantic Web)and for feeding dynamic Web pages (see Ajax).• Scripting languages are an important tool for Internetand Web development. CGI (Common GatewayInterface) is a facility that allows scripts to controlthe interaction between HTML forms on a Web pageand other programs such as databases (see cgi).CGI scripts are written in scripting languages (seeJavaScript, Perl, php, Python, and scripting languages).Use of CGI is being gradually supplantedby applets written in Java as well as other scriptinglanguages such as JavaScript and VBScript.• Active Server Pages (ASP) is a facility that uses WindowsActiveX components to process scripts createdin Visual Basic, which in turn create HTML pages “onthe fly” and send them to the user’s Web browser.• microsoft’s recent .NET initiative represents anattempt to integrate Internet connectivity and distributedoperation into the programming framework forall major languages.• Similar technologies are available for other platformssuch as Linux (see Ajax and document objectmodel)TrendsExperienced programmers will continue to be needed forcreating and extending the infrastructure for the Internetand Web and for providing increasingly powerful and easyto-usetools for developing Web sites. However, the widevariety of tools now available means that people with lessexperience will be able to design and implement attractiveand effective Web pages, plugging in functionality suchas online shopping, conferencing, and site-specific searchengines. If web development follows the same course astraditional programming, predictions that specialized programmerswill no longer be needed will prove premature.At the same time, generalist web developers will be able todo more.Further ReadingAndersson, Eve, Philip Greenspun, and Andrew Grumet. SoftwareEngineering for Internet Applications. Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress, 2006.Connolly, Randy. Core Internet Application Development with ASP.NET 2.0. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2007.