Archive for April, 2009

Compiled Web vs. Interpreted Web

April 30th, 2009 by jeremychone | 26 Comments »

Software technologists tend to learn by oscillating. We never arrive directly at the right solution; we just come closer to it by going back and forth. We always think (or like to think) that our current solution is correct; only to realize, some years later, that we overshot and need to take a few steps back. The evolution of the software application model is a great example of this syndrome. Every technologist knows about the three main application model phases—Mainframe, Client/Server, and Web [1.0]—and many of them think they know what the next phase will be. In fact, two models are currently being promoted. In order to better understand the current trend, it is important to first understand the three original model phases.

1) Mainframe

The first application model was the mainframe;  the client was simply a screen (typically green) and a keyboard that could display and send characters back and forth through a network. The server had all the definitions of the screens (i.e. User Interface), application logic, and data, and was communicating with the client by sending characters (which represented the UI and data) back and forth.

This approach had the benefit of being relatively simple, cost effective to scale, and was easy to manage because the application could be centrally managed. The limitation was obviously that the client’s lack of richness limited the type of application that could be offered. For example, a Google Map on a green screen would have been a challenge to implement.

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