Talk:Web application/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Please provide hard evidence of common shorthands for "web application" before posting to article

Add your evidence here. And Google hits isn't "evidence". — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 00:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Stevietheman! What the hell is a webapp? As a former programmer, I wrote Web applications, not webapps! --Coolcaesar 00:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you visit the WebApp article and see what that has to say? --Sean Brunnock 01:27, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

WebApp redirects to the web application article. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 21:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Now I remember. There used to be a magazine called "WebApps". The WWWC still has a page for it- [1] . --Sean Brunnock 01:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Google results are evidence of the popularity of words or terms. Usage is what makes a language. What else do you want, a search of all of [LexisNexis]? I'm a programmer and have written web applications too, and I completed one this week, and I've known about the word webapp for a long time. Even if it's not an official part of the language by your definition, Google shows that it's used often enough to be mentioned here. -Barry- 02:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

What part of the world are you in? It could be we're seeing a divergence between different dialects of English. This is a major problem on Wikipedia in general. --Coolcaesar 04:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

East Coast, U.S.A., and if "webapp" was used here only, it should still be mentioned. Personally, I don't like the looks of the word, and I thought it should be "web app" until I searched Google, but it's used often enough to be in Wikipedia. I never heard of "weblication" at all until I researched it, and I think even that should be mentioned. -Barry- 06:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I was going to propose "Web app" as a compromise, but Google gives me 13.6m hits for Webapp, including: Apache. Stephen B Streater 07:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

"Popularity" of a term doesn't make it encyclopedic. How about actually showing genuine technical articles that commonly use the term "webapp". Note that the use of "webapp" as simply a shortcut or a sloganeering or a magazine name won't cut it. I know IBM was calling them "weblications" at one point in genuine technical articles. I don't know if "webapp" was ever an official alternative name for "web application" unless that can be proven. Weblogs came to be officially known as blogs when that new version officially took over and was widely recognized; I don't see anything of the sort occurring for "webapp". — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 21:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. How does a term like blog "officially" take over? WebApps magazine was edited by the World Wide Web Consortium and Tim Berners-Lee was on the editorial board. How much more official do you want to get? --Sean Brunnock 21:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

So what---advertisers make up cute names for things all the time. Just because iRobot calls its vacuum cleaners Roombas doesn't mean all robotic vacuum cleaners are automatically Roombas, right? I think what Stevietheman is looking for is verifiability in the sense that well-respected sources like the New York Times are actually using "webapp" on a regular basis. Or, since we're talking about computer stuff here, reliable sources like Dr. Dobb's Journal or Communications of the ACM would probably do just as well. If you can dig up several solid citations to show that the general or technical press is actually using "webapp" on a regular basis, then I think no one would have an issue with that term being mentioned in the article. The reason we're having this debate is because I and several other editors simply haven't seen the word "webapp" in common use. --Coolcaesar 22:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You're equating the W3C with a vacuum cleaner company? --Sean Brunnock 22:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's not like the title "WebApps" went through the full W3C recommendation process, like Uniform Resource Identifier did. The point is that some things are promulgated as official standards and others are just informal usages. In the latter case, it's important to get evidence of widespread and consistent usage. --Coolcaesar 04:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Uniform Resource Identifier was such a popular phrase that the top 2 search results for it are IETF and the RFC, the third is the Wikipedia article, and the rest are reprints of either the RFC, or of Wikipedia... Another triumph design by committee? Ojw 14:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC) who's wondering what answer you'd get if you asked a random web user what the Uniform Resource Identifier of google's home page was...

Here are the 751 results from Google Scholar for the word webapps. -Barry- 06:34, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I already stated that Google results don't prove the point here. You have to show that the term is in regular common use in technical or business journals, as a web application is a technical and/or business entity. Just because there's a slang for "web application" doesn't qualify it as an alternative term. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 05:28, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Google Scholar, not Google.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html

"Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research." -Barry- 05:45, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Could this question be resolved by citing some of the relevant searches from Google Scholar, rather than the totals? If Google Scholar is as good as they say, it should be possible to pick out a few choice refences from reputable sources. Stephen B Streater 07:15, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I found the following with Google book search-

• Web applications, or WebApps, also have a very well-defined runtime environment., Learning Java, ISBN 0596002858
• As time passed, HTML was augmented by development tools (e.g., XML, Java) that enabled Web engineers to provide computing capability along with information, Web-based systems and applications (we will refer to these collectively as WebApps) were born., Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach, ISBN 007301933X
• We define a Web Application, or WebApp, as a WIS component that covers at least one of end-users' goals., Web Engineering: Principles and Techniques, ISBN 1591404339

--Sean Brunnock 14:52, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Client side web applications

See, for example [2] has client side Java classes listed. Stephen B Streater 01:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You're misreading both this article and the article you linked to. Java applets are not web applications. Web applications run on a remote server. You can interact with web applications with an applet, but an applet by itself does not constitute a web application. --Sean Brunnock 12:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I haven't found anything to contradict what you say, so it looks like you're correct - I'll leave the wording up to you. As it happens, all the web applications I can think of have server and client side parts, so meet your criteria. Stephen B Streater 12:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Then again, what if you're running a web server on your PC and you use a browser to access a web application running on your PC? It's not a remote server, but it's still a web application. So the current definition looks good to me. --Sean Brunnock 12:43, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what part of the current article is in question, but using an application that's on your own web server still means that the application is running on the server side as opposed to in your browser. It's even less of a web application if it's a non-web application server. If you have a cgi emulator, you could use a web browser to interface with software on the same computer with no web server and no internet connection. One reason that wouldn't be a web application even though a web browser is involved is because you wouldn't be using it as a web browser, even if you're on an HTML page with a form that interfaces with an application.

And I agree that a Java applet isn't a web application. It's software that you download to your computer. I don't think it matters whether it runs in your web browser or not. -Barry- 14:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the simpler explanation that java applets aren't World Wide Web, as defined on that page as hypertext, resource identifiers, client-server and markup? i.e. a web-application can be expected to use HTTP, HTML, and URLs (or equivalent). Ojw 14:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Some Java applets are client-server. For example, my own company's Clesh. It runs in an HTML web page with a URL, and it communicates with the server through HTTP. Stephen B Streater 14:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Ojw: The "combination of four basic ideas" list doesn't give a perfectly accurate definition of markup language. I think the definition of hypertext could apply to a Java applet too.

Stephen: The client-server applets would be web applications. -Barry- 15:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Please stop deleting relevant links and information

If one does not wish to discuss web-app and/or webapp and restrict the dicussion only to web_application, then there is no reason to be over inclusive and reserve these redirect links: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Web-app and http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Webapp

One does not need to have an IQ of 250 to understand that. Either you include it and allow content about it as well as links or you release the redirect and allow someone else to start an article about it.

Other issue: why are people changing/deleting relevant content without even checking? I see one of the guys here has been doing nothing for the last 6 months except going around and reverting articles everywhere in wiki, signing: Spam or vandalism. I assume that he means to his own Spam and vanadalism.

Well, it is possible to set up a page WebAPP and still have Webapp redirect to Web application with a disambig link at the top of the article. And, if you mean me in that last comment, have you bothered to look at some of the articles I've been reverting, or did you just assume that because I am disagreeing with you, I must not be able to make any correct decisions? Veinor (ヴエノル^(talk)) 14:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I will do it, I also hope you could keep a link to this article when done as an external link to prevent confussion.

Thank you and merry christams & happy Hanukka! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.164.214.186 (talk • contribs) 09:07, 15 December 2006.

Note that, in order to do so, you will need to register an account.

Capitalization issue: "Web application" v. "web application"

It looks like we're encountering yet another American English v. Commonwealth English issue again. I just ran some searches on Google with the site: operator to confirm my suspicions. Most American technology news sources prefer "Web application," including News.com, InternetNews.com, InfoWorld.com, PCWorld.com, and eWeek.com. The same goes for major newspapers like the New York Times and the San Jose Mercury News.

I think the article should remain in American English because the Manual of Style policy is to allow non-country-specific articles to remain in the dialect in which they were originally drafted. Also, although the first Web application was developed at CERN, the vast majority of Web applications as well as the underlying architectures (ColdFusion, ASP, CGI, etc.) were all developed in the United States.--Coolcaesar 01:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

"Web" is becoming decapitalized. See [3]. --Brunnock 01:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware of that article by Wired News, but I don't see its relevance. One, it's about the Internet, not the Web. Two, even if it's relevant, Wikipedia is supposed to follow trends, not set them. See the Wikipedia:No original research policy. Most mainstream publications are still using "Web application," and Wikipedia is not a soapbox for advocacy of the minority spelling. Also, I just discovered that Microsoft Corporation uses "Web application." --Coolcaesar 02:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

You didn't read the article. The very second sentence states, At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net. Anyways, you can do a search on "Web" and "capitalization" on Google. The first 3 hits advocate a lowercase spelling. --Brunnock 02:12, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, many of the other hits returned in response to that search are advocating the use of the uppercase spelling because it's what the Associated Press (and therefore much of the mainstream American English media) uses. Wired News is standing alone in its position; the vast majority of newspapers and magazines are deferring to AP style because most American journalists are trained to write in AP style as a matter of habit. I'm aware that many blogs have followed Wired News on this one, but the last time I checked, this is Wikipedia, not "Blogopedia." Wikipedia should be following the style that's verifiable, traditionally widely used, and not original research. --Coolcaesar 03:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the "web" is not a proper noun with respect to the concept of a "web application". This is because a web application can run on a single PC using a web server on the same PC. And a web application can run on an intranet, arguably not part of the World Wide Web. A web application only becomes a Web application if the application is designed solely for the public Web. And most web applications I've seen can run on the public Web, an intranet or a just a desktop PC. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 04:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I find the above comment convincing. My feeling is that "web application" should be lower case, except in the title. As it happens, Web 2.0 applications generally do run only on the Web, but even the first line of the web application definition includes intranet.

On a related issue, capitalising "internet" annoys all my non-techie friends. I notice that it is still called "Internet" here. Stephen B Streater 05:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, "Internet" is a proper noun, referring to the one-and-only Internet. I see it as a sort-of brand name for the thing. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 20:59, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The Queen is captialised - there can only be one queen important enough to be called the Queen after all!. Places are also capitalised. We could argue that the Internet is a place, and so should be capitalised. Non-techies think that it is arrogance, like saying "I work in Banking" would be - ie my job is more important than yours. There is and can only ever be One Internet, and I work in IT (if you can forgive the pun). The Internet is unique like the Queen, unlike your thing which is merely one of many.

I think that these new ideas are capitalised, but familiarity breeds contempt, and the Web -> web browser, web applications and The Internet -> internet software, internet hardware etc. It's just a question of how far along we are. "Web 2.0", but "the internet" is where my audience is at.

World Wide Web is a proper name. Web is simply short for WWW, therefore, it is still a proper name, and all proper names are capitalized, as the English language dictates. Wired stands alone in their use of the uncapitalized word, and their reasons are faulty. The internationally recognized official Web standards are established and published by the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C and can be found at the site [www.w3.org]. It must be acknowledged that the standard (i.e correct) is always a capitalized W whenever referring to the World Wide Web in any form, including: Web, Web site, Web page, Web server, etc. Structured systems such as the Internet, and civilized society in general, function and succeed, based on well established standards, protocols, definitons, principles, and yes, even rules (laws). To abandon those leads to confusion.

Claim: Because one or more established commercial media publishers (Wired was a paper periodical before they expanded to e-publishing on the Internet.) may change their corporate style manual or ignore their own established standards and practices at any point in time, that somehow makes them a public authority on standards useage outside their individual company.

Answer: False. Media publishers (commercial or not) are a priviliged subset of society that is able to compose, publish, and somewhat enforce their own style manuals, intended for internal application. It is society at large, or else certain industry specific consortiums which must choose, establish and attend to any designated authoritarian entity on standards. Countless many of those exist, e.g. SI, ASCII, etc., and apply to global society as well as to technical realms including the Internet. As stated in the intro to this Wiki article, it is the Associated Press which society (at least in America) recognizes as the current standard bearer for journalism (including e-publishing on the Web). Wired can freely do as they please, without being burdened unjustly as any kind of standards bearer. ~ UBeR 17:02, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I use a capitalised Web in order to promote a single unified Web. A lowercase web implies several different sorts of "web". For example some mobile industry players have wanted to create a "mobile web", which would fragments the Web as it is today. Hendry 10:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:CITE and WP:V. Thank you. --Sean Brunnock 02:19, 11 November 2006 ( UTC )

Removing the external link - reBOX API

I think this external link shouldn't be included in this article. It is an advertisement and I would like to remove it. Mayankkapoor (talk) 14:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

notability of web application

Ouch. I'll have to revert my previous assertion. The term "web application" has an existance of its own, being used by Sun and Microsoft and having organizations bearing that name:

• Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)
• Web Application Security Consortium (WASC)
• "A web application is a dynamic extension of a web or application server" Tutorial: Getting Started with Web Applications java.sun.com
• "client-side application development on the Web (...) With the ubiquity of Web browsers and Web document formats across a range of platforms and devices, many developers are using the Web as an application environment. Examples of applications built on rich Web clients (...) Education, outreach and testing also play an important role in improving the current state of Web applications" Web Application Formats Working Group Charter w3c.org
• Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects MSDN
• Appendix C The asadmin Utility "deploy: Deploys an enterprise application, web application, EJB module, connector module, or application client module." docs.sun.com
• "A Web Application (or "webapp") is a concept that was introduced in the Servlet Specification version 2.2. [2.1?] You should definitely read the spec for the full story." What is a web application (or "webapp")? jguru.com (has a date from 2000, 8 years ago!)

I smack myself for not noticing all of this on my first google search when writing my previous comment. This term is at least eight years old and appears on Java Servlets specifications, I fucking kid you not. My google-fu has failed me!

I also see a IBM developer article on how web applications are not good enough and Rich Internet Applications should be built instead [4]. That means that they are two different recognized entities. The RIA is stuff like flash-based or java-based interfaces that are not based on HTML and may even run outside a browser, while web applications are those that run on browsers (mainly using AJAX for dynamic parts), if I didn't understand it wrong. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Google Docs - example document.png

The image File:Google Docs - example document.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

• File:Google Docs.png

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --20:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality - Questions

Disconnected Rich Internet Applications such as Java/Flash/Silverlight and others are not RIA applications. Though, their makers would like us to believe otherwise. To my knowledge a true RIA is a Webpage / Web Application that runs within the browser and does not need any other application installed on the connected users computer.

I also find that the majority of the assumptions of the article seem to lend to specific products and services. Though, for example they may be necessary it is always necessary to include and reference the widest array of RIA that are non dependant on a branding.

Thank You,

Joe Garrett —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.114.193.131 (talk) 23:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• I respectfully disagree with several parts of your point. Any RIA needs only three things to be considered an RIA. To have a rich end user experience, to be network aware or to make use the Internet in some way, and to be an application. The Web is only a subset of the Internet, there is no reason why an RIA could not exist outside of the Web. The specific technology used to make the RIA is irrelevant as long as it satisfies those three requirements.

80g (talk) 17:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Right. So the X Window System (all 800MiB of it) is an RIA? It is an application, is network-aware (actually several-networks-aware) and is (very) rich. Following your logic, even Quake III multiplayer is an RIA. Is RIA then just another marketroid term? No respect given or implied.112.110.4.216 (talk) 23:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, your logic is flawed. "Rich" internet applications are developed under a set of specific frameworks that are based on making Internet applications behave more like desktop applications. Flash, Flex, Silverlight, these things are "rich". There's a relatively huge difference between a desktop application that uses TCP/IP to communicate with other desktop applications, and a browser based plugin desktop application that blends protocols between desktop and web architectures. Being someone who writes both, in C++, C#, VB, PHP, you name it. I know. JudgeX (talk) 13:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

Hi all, just a quick note about neutrality. I don't want to start an argument about future technology, but from a basic review of the article, it seems to argue that the web-app is the future of application development. I have my own views on this, which I am not presenting here, but simply looking at the article, it seems to have a bias. The external links presented for further reading, for example, all present the view that web-apps will replace local apps. This is the age-old centralisation vs distributed argument coming into things. The tricky part of that is that every time it has appeared apparent that centralisation or distributed computing has become dominant, the situation has jack-knifed and surprised the pundits. I don't mind if you pull the neutrality tag off the article again, but I thought I should mention to the folks here that the article (even on first reading) seems to be taking a position that is not yet assured, even if it may seem likely. Perhaps someone could review the article text and try to make it a little less biased (presumptive of future direction) in tone? Or perhaps someone could add a single link that discusses a non-webapp future? (ie: The argument presented is teleological). Anyway, just a thought. My two cents worth. I will leave it to wiser heads to resolve. Hybrazil (talk) 05:44, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is about the fact that web applications is just about to become a "sterilized" term which is making it difficult to restrict for a specific usage. --און 09:16, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

IMHO you make the mistake to think that web apps are not local apps. This is not true with the new developments for client-side storage and offline execution in the mayor RIA toolkits (Google Gears, Flash AIR, Silverlight, Mozilla Prism, HTML 5...). The identification of web apps with centralized computing should not be made anymore; a web app may very well executed in a thick client. The primary difference with desktop applications is that of the distribution methods, which are ad-hoc for non-web apps but are built on standarized web protocols for web apps. Diego (talk) 12:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Weblogs as web applications

On the Talk page for weblog I'm trying to convince a guy called Stevie that a weblog is not a web application. He doesn't get it. --robotwisdom 23:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't see what name calling will get you. Weblogs and all the standard features that go along with them could only be handled by way of web applications. What else do you propose handles all these features? Magic? — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 23:16, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Would you call some guy using Notepad to write text files containing HTML magic? Blogs don't need to be "applications" at all. Sure there are products out there that make the task of blogging easier, but blogs in and of themselves are not applications. 70.91.136.242 (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Comments

Blogs are web applications. If they aren't web applications, then what exactly are they?!??! --Niclinley 00:51, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, if you look at the whole Talk:Weblog mess, you'll see that the point thrashed out through much discussion was that although nearly all weblogs are Web applications, not all weblogs are Web applications, so it would be inappropriate (at least according to some people) to treat weblogs as a subclass of Web applications (in the object-oriented programming sense). --Coolcaesar 04:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

i shoude mehulumaranaiya and vishalumaranaiya plies my aplication from web to instaal to gogaalweb

"The web interface places very few limits on client functionality" is wrong in practice

Web interfaces, compared to thick clients, typically force tremendous sacrifice to user experience and basic usability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.28.212 (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Concur with critique. Whomever wrote that statement [removed comments about author] --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Please comment on content, not on editors. If the text is badly written, then please BE BOLD AND FIX IT. Just rewrite the problematic text. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems to me that with HTML5 and with good design, this is increasingly not the case. I see that the article gives the unattributed claim, "In practice, web interfaces, compared to thick clients, typically force significant sacrifice to user experience and basic usability." I'd really like to see statements like this cited, and probably a range of views expressed on controversial questions like this, rather than just whatever editor got there last. - Jmabel | Talk 17:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

File:Webconverger.png Nominated for Deletion

	An image used in this article, File:Webconverger.png, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests June 2011 What should I do?
	A discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 17:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Writing web applications V. Benefits of Web Application Frameworks

This section is in need of great repair. While the title leans one to think they will learn about the process of writing a web app, the content spends 95% of its time focused on the benefits of web application frameworks to the act of writing web apps. While this might be a curtail part of writing web apps currently it is in no way the end all and be all of the process. In the coming days I will be posting outside links to this talk section so that we can made an informed rewrite of this section. Matthew Chase Whittemore (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Add more programming languages that a web application can be written in. Also, give some examples of each type of web application. The history about web application is great. The business use part should also be expanded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ecballer17 (talk • contribs) 01:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Interface

I was a bit surprised to see the statement:

"The Web interface places some limits on client functionality. Application-specific methods such as drawing on the screen, and more general-purpose techniques such as drag and drop are not supported by standard browser technology."

I am not sure whether this is untrue or just misleading. Go to this web application, and, if you have Java (pretty standard in browsers these days), you will find that your standard web browser does indeed support a drag and drop interface. The whole application is based on it.

In fact, we could also note that "drag'n'drop" is at this time quite perfectly done using javascript (even more supported than java, and more transparent). For example, script.aculo.us - Folletto

I've updated this section. Java and Javascript are pretty standard now in web browsers. Stephen B Streater 07:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The earlier statement "the web interface places some limits on client functionality" is more accurate. The browser interface places limitations in client design and performance because of the controls available and the inability to use local machine resources. The AJAX initiative attempts to address some of this by enabling richer interfaces and a Smart Cleints architecture enables local resources to be used as well as providing a richer interface. Nevertheless a web application has limits and it is misleasing to say otherwise. --Richardsgray 17:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'd argue that the web ui is very limited. In pure scripted DHTML, you don't get any local OS integration, not even clipboard, no info on machine state (power, network) etc. This is for security and cross-platform integration, and I would argue that while it makes a webapp less "rich" than native code, it makes it easier to develop and test, and to roll out. Things like Java Webapps and webstart, activeX downloads, .NET XAML applications and such likes are attempts to increase the richness of the UI while retaining one of the main benefits of scripted webapps: no installation costs. But there is a price. First, harder to test, increases dev costs. Second, you still need the right runtime on the far end, otherwise: increased support costs. Third, the runtime needs to be secure, and in the past year we've had patches for Java, Flash and .NET that are all needed to lock them down. This article could be updated to look at the difference between low dev and support costs (unscripted HTML with all code server side, then DHTML+ javascript, finally "Rich" internet apps using plugins), noting that currently mainstream apps are AJAX+JavaScript+ DHTML, some flash. Maybe look at the history of the power struggle (Sun with Applets, MS counteract with ActiveX, Flash turns out to meet graphic designer's needs, AJAX, ....). SteveLoughran (talk) 12:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

As to Interface, can we change the term to User Interface, and I have made some change above. What is you guys' opinions ? would you please help revise it? I guess we need more examples to show how can a web client as powerful as desktop one. And also some drawbacks. Amixyue (talk) 03:44, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

History

Could someone translate the history part from the corresponding german article. It is much better described there. I would do it, but im not good in translations.

Sorry, I do not know German. However, I suggest history should follow the following order:

The web application can date back to the proposal of "WorldWideWeb" by Tim Berners-Lee in late 1991, which suggested HTTP along with HTML and the associated technology for a web server and a text-based web browser. The web application can date back to the proposal of "WorldWideWeb" by Tim Berners-Lee in late 1991, which suggested HTTP along with HTML and the associated technology for a web server and a text-based web browser. The first release of the Mosaic web browser in 1993 triggered the dot-com bubble covering roughly 1995-2000 with a climax in March, 2000, during which a bunch of new Internet-based companies referred to as dot-coms are founded as well as their web applications.

The client side has been experiencing advances all the time. In Nov. 1995, HTML 2.0 was published to support form which allows interaction between servers and clients.

CSS, a style sheet language, was released on Dec. 17 1996 by W3C, primarily to enable the seperation of document content from document presentation. This seperation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content. CSS can also allow the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices. While the author of a document typically links that document to a CSS style sheet, readers can use a different style sheet, perhaps one on their own computer, to override the one the author has specified.

JavaScript, a client-side scripting language, is developed firstly by Netscape in 1995, to provide enhanced user interfaces. In 1996, the standard version named ECMAScript was released based on Netscape's JavaScript.

The Document Object Model (DOM), a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents, was released firstly by Netscape with JavaScript. After the release of ECMAScript, W3C began work on a standardized DOM. The current release is DOM3.

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), a group of interrelated web development techniques such as JavaScript, XML along with DOM and CSS used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications, and the term was coined on 18 February 2005 by Jesse James Garrett.

Asynchronous loading of content first became practical when Java applets were introduced in the first version of the Java language in 1995. In 1996, Macromedia introduced Flash, a vector animation player that could be added to browsers as a plug-in to embed animations on the web pages. It allowed the use of a scripting language to program interactions on the client side with no need to communicate with the server. In 1996, Internet Explorer introduced the iframe element to HTML, which also enabled asynchronous loading. In 1999, Microsoft created the XMLHTTP ActiveX control in Internet Explorer 5, which was later adopted by Mozilla, Safari, Opera and other browsers as the XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object, which is later supported by IE 7+. In April 2000 Microsoft filed a patent on the basic Ajax technology, which was granted in June 2006. Google made a wide deployment of Ajax with Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005).On 5 April 2006 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first draft specification for the XMLHttpRequest object in an attempt to create an official web standard.

Json, or JavaScript Object Notation, derived from the JavaScript scripting language for representing simple data structures and associative arrays, but actually a language-independent data format, is launched in 2002 as an alternative to XML, which booms Ajax programming.

Above techniques has made rich client possible. Contrasted to a thin client, which is heavily dependent on a server, the rich client provides a more-responsive platform as well as rich functionality reletively independent of the central server. What is more, HTML 5, the fifth revision of the HTML standard, which is still under development, aims to support rich client and also low-powered devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition to specifying markup, HTML5 specifies scripting application programming interfaces (APIs), including Offline Web Applications, Drag-and-drop, Web Storage, etc.

On the server side, there exists equally amazing evolution.

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI), a standard method for web server software to delegate the generation of web pages to executable files, was developed in 1993. Such files are known as CGI scripts; they are programs, often stand-alone applications, usually written in a scripting language. CGI is implemented by calling a command, which leads to invocation of a newly created process on the server.

Later, such popular Web servers as Apache and IIS, are developed with their own extension mechanisms that allows third-party software to run inside the web server itself.

The Java ServerPages(JSP) and the Java Servlet are released in 1999 by Sun Microsystem, as a replacement of the CGI architecture. Both the JSP and the Java Servlet are running in a Java servlet container and this approach replaces the overhead of generating and destroying processes with the much lower overhead of generating and destroying threads. Apache Tomcat is a widely used web server with a servlet container. Till now, JSP has developed through JSP 1.0 and JSP 2.0.

As to HTTP protocol, HTTPS, was created by Netscape in 1994 to create a secure channel over an insecure network by authenticating the server and encrypting the transporting layer.

Amixyue (talk) 03:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

User Interface

User interface can be categoried by techniques into JavaScript-based or framework-based. The latter needs installing a software framework using the computer's operating system before launching the application, which typically downloads, updates, verifies and executes the RIA, while the former use built-in browser functionality to implement comparable interfaces. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amixyue (talk • contribs) 03:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Through JavaScript, DOM, Ajax, JavaFX, Flash, Silverlight, HTML 5 and other techniques, the client has already been able to support almost all functionalities of a typical desktop application software, including responsive, drag-and-drop, offline web applications, multimedia, and storage. Concrete examples are Google mail which makes full use of Ajax and video streaming applying Silverlight for many high profile events, including the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and the 2008 conventions for both major political parties in the United States, etc.

Amixyue (talk) 03:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

References

Web Applications

Can we make a list based on core technique they use?

I think as there are "benefit" and "drawback" , can we just remove the "Business" part?

Amixyue (talk) 04:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Web Application Development

As to development, not writing. I think we should talk about tools (IDE and code generation), framework, platform, etc.

I can talk about Java. Anyone can help with other language?

The following is the order I consider: Java: Tool(Eclipse)

Framework:

Feature:

ORM - hibernate, mybatis (Database access and mapping, Automatic configuration)

MVC - Struts, Webwork (URL mapping)

Security: Some web application frameworks come with authentication and authorization frameworks, that enable the web server to identify the users of the application, and restrict access to functions based on some defined criteria. Drupal is one example that provides role-based access to pages, and provides a web-based interface for creating users and assigning them roles.

IOC - guice

Spring

Web template system (pull-based, push-based)

life-cycle

software (CMS/forum/blog)

Amixyue (talk) 04:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Web Application Development Model

In JSP Model 1, a request is made to a JSP or servlet and then that JSP or servlet handles all responsibilities for the request, including processing the request, validating data, handling the business logic, and generating a response. The Model 1 architecture is commonly used in smaller, simple task applications due to its ease of development. JSP Model 2 is a more complex design pattern that separates the presentation from model used to obtain and manipulate the content. JSP Model 2 is usually assoicated with Model-View-Controller(MVC) paradigm. In a Model 2 application, requests from the client browser are passed to the controller. The controller processes logic, places the content in the request (commonly in the form of a JavaBean or POJO), and decides which view it will pass the request to. The view then renders the content passed by the controller.

A more complex Model 2 needs a controller as the only entry point of the web application, which then dispatches the request to the corresponding action and maps the view to the result.

Legacy web applications are synchronous in nature. The user interacts with the web interface presented in the browser, the browser makes requests back to the server based on that user interaction, and the server responds to those requests with new presentation for the user - fundamentally a synchronous process. This means that the presentation delivered to the user represents a snapshot in time of what is a dynamic system. That snapshot becomes stale in between user interactions and does not necessarily provide an accurate view onto the current state of the system. The asynchronous Web is fundamentally different, and that difference revolutionizes how web applications behave. In the Asynchronous Web it is possible to deliver spontaneous presentation changes to the user as the state of a dynamic system changes, without the need for the user to interact with the interface. The advantages are obvious as we can now maintain an accurate view onto the system for the user. Techniques include HTTP Polling, HTTP Streaming, and HTTP Long Polling.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components (discrete pieces of code and/or data structures) that can be reused for different purposes. Techniques include Java EJB, Web Service, etc.

I guess the Structure part should be "Web Application Development Model" instead.

Any of you guys would like to work with me on this part?

I have added JSP model 1.0, to JSP model 2.0 (MVC actually), asynchronous model, a little more about SOA.

Can anyone familiar with PHP talk more about PHP? I just know the fundamental things.

And also Ruby, including Ruby on Rails?

And Django?

Another thing is Lifecycle model (proposal, design, implement, unit test, integrated test, deploy, maintain)

Amixyue (talk) 04:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

References

In the "Structure" part, there is "Traditional applications consist only of 1 tier", however, it later mentions that "the three tiers are called presentation, application and storage", if we are going to talk about MVC here, I guess the traditional application also consists of MVC. So I suggest that we should talk about development model here.

Amixyue (talk) 04:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

copyvio or whatever template replacement

You have essentially ruined an article which was the top Google result for a search for "web app". Please just excise the offending info in the future. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.120.223 (talk) 07:14, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Introduction Definition & Reference

The introduction paragraph defines a web application as "an application that is accessed by users over a network such as the Internet or an intranet." This seems to me to be vague and inaccurate. Applications accessed over RDP for instance are not web applications, yet they are accessed by users over a network.

Additionally, the reference used for this definition (http://webtrends.about.com/od/webapplications/a/web_application.htm) doesn't seem to include any words that reflect the definition used in this article. It defines a web application very well in my opinion: "A web application is any application that uses a web browser as a client."

I believe this definition should be used instead of the current one, since it is more accurate and also reflects the reference being used.

--Rsaesha (talk) 22:36, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Introduction

I think the introduction part is ambiguous and I suggest we change it as following: A question is that how can we distinguish a web site and a web application? I guess they are the same.

A web application is an application that is accessed over machine boundary. In the narrow sense, the term always mean an application developed over World Wide Web depending on HTTP protocol applying the client-server model. The client always indicates a web browser, while the server always indicates a web server which responds to the HTTP request.

The web application is popular due to the ubiquity of web browsers. Also the ability of maintaining and updating the application without distributing and installing softwares on potentially thousands of client computers, which implies the cross-platform compatibility, is another key reason for the popularity.

Amixyue (talk) 03:44, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

The current introduction, and some of the comments above, are WAY off formal definitions :/

A web site is a computer on the internet which serves HTTP or HTTPS for a given hostname. That is ALL. It could simply provide a list of files and allow downloading, using built-in HTTP server support, without a single web page implemented on the server side. Web sites are NOT AT ALL the same thing as a web application, a web page, or a collection of web pages, any more than a computer is the same thing as a computer game.

Amixyue's definition of webapps is reasonable, though I would argue that simple, one-page scripts like CGI-BIN scripts or one-page PHP calculator scripts are web pages, and web apps are the more complex beasts that maintain state, acting much like a desktop application, with menus (not necessarily desktop-like in appearance), different screens, usually some sort of underlying database, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.229.103.1 (talk) 07:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, 151.229.103.1

Please sign your messages by inserting ~~~~ at the end and adhere to appropriate indentation rules.

Now, regardless of your opinion, Wikipedia is governed by the principle of verifiability. If you think something is wrong, you must provide a source for what you think is right, especially when what you think is wrong cites sources. Your contribution however, had many more problems: It was full of redundant technical words and jargons and it was wrong. Norton Internet Security, MediaCoder , "SKF Catalog" and most rich Internet applications all provide web pages to be rendered in a web browser, and for which those web pages provide at least part of the application's user-interface; but they are not web applications. Existing definition correctly classifies them as "not web apps" because they don't run inside a web browser.

Remember, content without source, such as yours, may be challenged or reverted.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 14:14, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Add examples?

I think it would help the page if there were examples mentioned. I came here from the Google Docs page, as Google Docs is a web app and this page is referenced multiple types, but nothing points from web apps to one of the brightest examples, or any other.

87.126.123.73 (talk) 23:56, 9 February 2016 (UTC)Stefan

elle a repris diverses activités qui 'occupent bien, et elle passe réguligrement des bons moments avec des amis qui habitant tout prés de chez elle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.253.215.97 (talk) 16:59, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Application vs Platform

The illustration in example is not an application but a platform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.159.196.124 (talk) 10:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Sentence is uncomplete

In this sentence " Web sites most likely to be referred to as "web applications" are those which have similar functionality to a desktop software application, or to a " something is missing. I cannot find who was the author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.95.188.5 (talk) 09:26, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Please add this

Fellow editor,

You may want to add this:

"A website is designed to provide a user with information and allow them to make an appropriate action based on that information. The action could be a contact form, purchase a product etc.

In contrast a web application is product/service which runs within the web browser but has a clearly defined purpose. Web applications are not restricted to proving users with a single application purpose as you would expect from mobile app.

Web apps are often confused with mobile apps, and with the advent of HTML5, the lines are becoming even blurrier. Web apps look and feel very much like mobile apps. They even store data in your browser’s cache, so much of the app can be accessed offline.

A website is defined by its content, while a web application is defined by its interaction with the user.

A website is a collection of web pages under the same location while a web application is a type of application that is hosted over a network."

I am not sure where to add this so it would be helpful if you do it.

(This is my first talk page, so please tell me of any mistakes)

Neel st (talk) 10:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

References

That passage is both factually inaccurate and clearly inappropriate for Wikipedia because it's written in textbook style, not encyclopedia style. If you want to write a textbook, please consider visiting [Wikibooks]. Wikipedia is not a textbook. See WP:NOT. --Coolcaesar (talk) 22:57, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

wui

Hi.

There is a discussion about WUI = Web User Interface. It is a type of User Interface.

Please note that

• "web user interface" redirects to page Web application.
• it is on wikidata

IMHO there is a place for WUI in this article. My edit was removed. My co-discussant sugested to raising this issue on the article's talk page, which would allow to get input from other editors. Let me show some examples of WUI:

• shadertoy - is one of the online tool letting you play interactively with GLSL ES shaders (and browse other’s shaders)
• github - acces to git repository through Web browser ( = WUI). One can also use CLI simultaneously for other operations : git push -u origin main
• jupyter - JupyterLab is the latest web-based interactive development environment for notebooks, code, and data.
• D3.js (also known as D3, short for Data-Driven Documents) is a JavaScript library for producing dynamic, interactive data visualizations in web browsers.
• d3-geomap is a library for creating geographic maps that are rendered in a Web browser. d3-geomap is written in JavaScript
• Three.js is a cross-browser JavaScript library and application programming interface (API) used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser using WebGL.
• Cytoscape.js - Graph theory (network) library for visualisation and analysis

Pros of WUI:

• Easily accessible = "everybody" have web browser
• multiplatform = It runs o each software/hardware platform on which web browser runs

Is it a place for such information in web application page ? Soul surfer (talk) 13:37, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at New Jersey Institute of Technology supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q2 term. Further details are available on the course page.

Above message substituted from {{WAP assignment}} on 14:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Carnegie Mellon University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2012 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

Above message substituted from {{WAP assignment}} on 14:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Distinct from Hybrid Web App

I think the "Redirect From: Hybrid App" is incorrect. To be clear, I think this webapps page is fine in and of itself.

Currently (March 1 2023) the Hybrid app article is a simple redirect to here, Web app.

Rationale: While hybrid apps are built WITH web app technologies, sometimes only in part. They ALSO include native (local device) adapters to render those webapps using local resources. Typically (circa 2023, in my personal experience as a vet software engineer) Hybrid apps are found on personal computing devices, and generally include an HTML renderer/JS runtime/native-API (not specified by W3C standards) binding layer - whereas web apps are typically found on dedicated servers and their JS / rendered content conform strictly to Web standards.

So Hybrid apps are a kind of web app, however they are distinct in that they are not necessarily intended to operate on the internet, and do provide added APIs Ncr100 (talk) 16:58, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. A redirect to Mobile_app#Hybrid_app would be a better destination. PaulT2022 (talk) 18:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 December 2023

Change "Traditional PC applications consist only of 1 tier, which resides on the client machine, but web applications lend themselves to a multi-tiered approach by nature." to "Traditional PC applications are typically single-tiered, residing solely on the client machine. In contrast, web applications inherently facilitate a multi-tiered architecture." Travis-g-reid (talk) 01:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done Lewcm Talk to me! 09:30, 8 December 2023 (UTC)