Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [web-applications]

Web applications are applications that are accessed over the "web", which can mean the Internet, or an internal network (an intranet).

In a web application, the user's browser functions as a client.

Thin Client

The heavy-lifting is done by code on the server side. Web applications follow the client-server model in general. Some examples of web applications include Google Calendar, Zimbra, and Office Outlook Web Access.

Rich Internet Application (RIA)

These applications offer a rich amount of interaction possibilities using their GUI. Rich internet applications tend to be more alike desktop applications than static web-pages. A RIA for example allows to interact using drag and drop, 3D effects animations and other media.

Related Stack Exchanges

1071 questions
225
votes
3 answers

Why doesn't HTTP have POST redirect?

HTTP redirects are done via HTTP codes 301, and 302 (maybe other codes also) and a header field known as "Location" which has the address of the new place to go. However, browsers always send a "GET" request to that URL. However, many times you…
Saeed Neamati
  • 18,142
  • 23
  • 87
  • 125
116
votes
8 answers

How to keep applications stateless

This may be a convoluted question, but I'm trying to get a better understanding of statelessness. Based on what I've read, web applications should be stateless, meaning each request is treated as an independent transaction. As a result, Session and…
user253058
111
votes
9 answers

Fear of web-app not being "future-proof"

I'm a web developer of a small, local SaaS web application. It currently has about a half-dozen clients. As I continue to design the application, it's become increasingly harder for me to convince myself to commit any time to the project, which has…
cameraguy258
  • 1,229
  • 2
  • 8
  • 6
109
votes
3 answers

Should cookies be used in a RESTful API?

I'm specifically interested in how users perform authorized / authenticated operations on a web API. Are authentication cookies compatible with the REST philosophy, and why?
Brandon Linton
  • 1,665
  • 3
  • 14
  • 9
82
votes
6 answers

Service layer vs DAO -- Why both?

I have been working with SpringMVC, Hibernate, and some databases in a java web application example. There are a few different ones that do this, but this Spring 3 and hibernate integration tutorial with example has a model class, view (in jsp), and…
Jeff
  • 1,854
  • 3
  • 16
  • 19
72
votes
9 answers

Can we assume while testing software that a user wouldn't perform such silly actions on software?

For example: While performing functional testing of a form in a web application, we will test the fields by entering different kind of random input values. In general, we as users of the web application do not actually enter random values into…
Nagarani Dubbaka
  • 835
  • 1
  • 6
  • 4
71
votes
11 answers

Advice on designing web application with a 40+ year lifetime

Scenario Currently, I am apart of a health care project whose main requirement is to capture data with unknown attributes using user generated forms by health care providers. The second requirement is that data integrity is key and that the…
Pete
  • 1,257
  • 12
  • 15
67
votes
7 answers

Are there open source alternatives to Bitbucket, Github, Kiln, and similar DVCS browsing and management tools?

I am aware of several tools/services that provide DVCS browsing and management such as Bitbucket, Github, Kiln, SCM-Manager and Rhodecode. However, the use case I am considering is one such that: Any source code must reside on an employers internal…
Ryan Taylor
  • 1,026
  • 1
  • 9
  • 14
66
votes
10 answers

How and why did modern web application frameworks evolve to decouple URL routes from the file system?

Compared to about 10 years ago I have noted a shift towards frameworks using the style of routing that decouples the URL path from the filesystem. This is typically accomplished with the help of a front-controller pattern. Namely, when before, URL…
Dennis
  • 8,157
  • 5
  • 36
  • 68
64
votes
4 answers

Reasons NOT to use JSF

I am new to StackExchange, but I figured you would be able to help me. We're crating a new Java Enterprise application, replacing an legacy JSP solution. Due to many many changes, the UI and parts of the business logic will completely be rethought…
Bruno Schäpper
  • 1,916
  • 2
  • 14
  • 24
61
votes
8 answers

Client-side coding: How to prevent malicious use?

Over the last few years, the trend for client-side (browser) applications has really taken off. For my latest project, I have decided to try and move with the times and write a client-side application. Part of this application involves sending…
GWed
  • 3,085
  • 5
  • 26
  • 43
53
votes
6 answers

Pros and Cons of holding all the business logic in stored procedures in web application

In some organization I worked for web applications are developed basing all the business logic in Database stored procedures. For example, use html for view and servlet as controllers to divert the client request to appropriate Database stored…
droidsites
  • 1,027
  • 2
  • 11
  • 10
52
votes
5 answers

Advantages and disadvantages of building a single page web application

I'm nearing the end of a prototyping/proof of concept phase for a side project I'm working on, and trying to decide on some larger scale application design decisions. The app is a project management system tailored more towards the agile…
ryanzec
  • 2,747
  • 3
  • 24
  • 30
47
votes
2 answers

How do you handle shared concepts in a microservice architecture?

I am researching architectural patterns for an application I'm developing and a microservice approach seems like it would be a good choice but I am not sure how to handle interactions between the services. The application primarily deals with users,…
anjunatl
  • 588
  • 1
  • 4
  • 5
46
votes
8 answers

Is it common practice to validate responses from 3rd party APIs?

I'm working on a PHP web application that depends on a few 3rd-party services. These services are well documented and provided by fairly large organisations. I feel paranoid when working with responses from these API, which leads me to write…
Darren Findlay
  • 593
  • 4
  • 9
1
2 3
…
71 72