Chapter Review

We ve covered a lot of information in this chapter. We began by defining some key architecture concepts and design patterns related to Web applications, including the model-view-controller pattern.

We then defined the requirements of a robust presentation- tier architecture in terms of display capabilities, form submission and processing requirements, and navigation controls. We discussed how meeting these requirements represents a significant design challenge for a home-grown, custom-developed architecture, thereby leading us to search for a prebuilt presentation-tier framework to speed development and improve maintenance.

Two candidate architectures were then compared in the context of the presentation-tier requirements defined earlier, and recommendations were provided to guide your selection of presentation-tier architecture based on project and team attributes.

It s time to apply what you learned in Chapters 1 and 2. In the next two chapters, we will design and build the presentation-tier components of a larger example application. This example program, a hotel reservation Web site, will provide a realistic platform for our examination of deployment issues, JMS best practices, security, application management, Web Services, and business-tier architecture selection in succeeding chapters.