Jan K. Labanowski: "Tomcat, servlets, JSPs and other friends"

Dynamic Web Content

  • Static Content -- the same stuff in the disk file and on the screen:
    • "Pure" HTML pages (Content-Type: text/html)
    • Text files: (Content-Type: text/plain)
    • Binary files: PDF, MS-WORD, tar.gz (Content-Type: application/something)
     
     
  • Dynamic Content on the client -- content retrieved from the Web server is passed unchanged to the browser, and browser executes parts of it:
    • Client based JavaScript (ECMA script). For example:
      Last changed: <script>document.write(document.lastModified);</script>
    • VBScript
    • Java Applets
    • Cascading Style Sheets/Dynamic HTML
    • HTML Meta Records:
     
     
  • Dynamic Content on the server -- content retrieved from the disk file is changed/executed by the server.
    • Common Gateway Interface (CGI),
    • Proprietary Server Based APIs (e.g., NSAPI or ISAPI) -- fast (in process) but proprietary.
    • Server based Java Script (Netscape/iPlanet)
    • Server Side Includes (HTTPD, Apache)
    • Java Servlets
    • eXtensible Style Sheet Language Transformations (XSLT)
    • Server pages -- bits of code inserted into HTML: ASP pages -Microsoft, Java Server Pages - Sun.
    • lots of other approaches