New Generation Web Applications

Web applications around the world are now undergoing a sea of changes. With the arrival of web 2.0 concepts, more interactive, richer and faster web sites are evolving. Web 2.0 concepts revolve around Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and other similar kind of Advanced Rich Internet applications or RIA. A web site, which makes use of Ajax concept, acts much like a Desktop application without refreshing every time a process is completed. Imagine waiting on web pages, which are refreshing continuously every time we complete a process.

Designing a web page for maximum user interactivity is a challenge for the web developers. Web 2.0 concepts make it possible for developers to develop web pages in their choice of language. When Web 2.0 concept is fully implemented, the application doesn't have to refresh every time when data is required to be displayed from the server side. It can get data from server without even blinking at you. It uses XML to transfer data from server side to client side. Since XML is lightweight, the whole data can be translated to XML and transmitted from the server side to client side. While they reach client side, the XML is translated back to HTML and can be displayed on the screen. This way it is very easy to transmit large amount of data in less amount of time. So at the client side the performance is doubled when Web 2.0 concept is implemented, as the client is communicating directly to the server.

This is done through a HTTP Request client is making to the server. Google suggest is the best example for this. You can see the suggestions made by this web page appear as you type a word in a list box. All modern day browsers support Web 2.0 Concept. The important of Web 2.0 concept is widely accepted while many traditional windows applications are being developed as web applications. Banking applications, ERP applications etc. are now being developed as web applications, which users find easier than their windows counter parts.

Like any web applications, developing a web 2.0 application should take care of security concerns. As this technology is now becoming more and more popular, developers need to understand about the security issues associated using this technology. They should get themselves trained to protect web pages for any possible attack from hackers. Security concerns like cross-site scripting flaw can be a threat to applications developed in web 2.0.