Web Application behind the scenes

Arpee Ong

Who Am I?

Name: Richard Peter Ong a.k.a. Arpee

Work: Lead Software Developer, Internal Projects @ SysIQ Inc. USA

Other Affiliations: Core Developer of Mambo CMS, MiaCMS and CamiroCMS

Member, PHP User Group Philippines

IT Consultant @ LevitanSoftware, Kalibo, PH

Who Are you?

IT Students / Faculty

Future Web Application Developers

Scope and Coverage:

Basic Web Application Workflow

Examples

Components, what makes Web Applications tick

Sample on the spot codes using PHP

WHAT IS A WEB APPLICATION?

Any application that is served commonly via http or https protocol

Usually being served from a remote computer acting as a host/server

How does a Web Applicationdiffer with Desktop Applications ?

Common Web Applications do not need to be installed on the client

Requires only a Web Browser to run

Easily Distributable due to native support of the underlying technoloy to concurrent connections and users

Web vs Desktop

Common Desktop Applications are secured by nature, because physical access is needed to tamper with data

Does not require network or internet connection to function because they usually deal with offline data only

Web vs Desktop

Common TypesWeb Applications(Open Source Examples)

Content Management Systems (CMS)

E-Commerce

Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM)

Forums / Discussion Boards

Common Types

Are Web Applications which supply the basic functionalities of a ready-to-deploy dynamic website which deals with articles and content.

Content Management Systems

Mambo CMS -

http://mambo-foundation.org

MiaCMS -

http://miacms.org

Joomla -

http://joomla.org

Drupal - http://drupal.org

Content Management Systems

Are Web Applications which supply the basic functionalities of a ready-to-deploy E-Commerce Website which serve as an online shopping portal.

E-Commerce Systems

OSCommerce -

http://oscommerce.com

Magento -

http://www.magentocommerce.com/

E-Commerce Systems

Are Web Applications mainly used for Customer Support. It is a system where client 'Ticket Complaints' are managed and resolved

Customer Relationship Management Systems

SugarCRM -

http://sugarcrm.com

VTiger -

http://vtiger.com

Customer Relationship Management Systems

Are Web Applications mainly used for threaded communication among its community user-base. It is considered as an 'enhanced bulletin board' system due to its similarity with the BBS systems we knew from the late 80's

Forums / Discussion Boards

PunBB -

http://punbb.informer.com/

SMF -

http://www.simplemachines.org/

Forums / Discussion Boards

Layers of a Web Application

Layers:

Browser Rendered HTML

HTML Code

Script (Server Side)

Browser Rendered HTML

HTML Code

Script (Source)

HTTP Request Workflow

Server (Host)

User (Client)

REQUEST

RESPONSE

User (Client) Actions invokinga Web Request

Initial Page Load

Loading of Media (CSS, Javascript, Images, Flash, Videos etc.)

Submission of Forms

Download Requests

Basic Components of a Web Application

Basic Components:

Datamodel

User Interface

Application Logic

Datamodel:

Is where the actual data is stored/retrieved

Data is stored in tabular format with predefined columns and datatypes

User Interface:

Is what the end-user sees. It is commonly a collection of static HTML files (optionally with Javascript/CSS and other media). These Static HTML are commonly called Theme or Template and where processed Data will be placed upon script processing.

Application Logic:

Is the main workhorse of a web application, it interacts with the Datamodel and outputs processed data to the User Interface.

Live Code Demo

The END

Contact Info:arpee.ong@gmail.com