Understanding the RequestResponse Scenario

Understanding the Request/Response Scenario

If you are new to Internet development or at least development using the Web, the first thing to understand is that Web development is a different paradigm that most of what you are probably familiar with. Especially because most of the business-to-business communication is taken place through protocols such as HTTP/S and the length that a company must go to in order to provide security as well as fast response times.

This section will not go through a lengthy discussion on what makes developing Web-based applications different from the rest. That type of information belongs in a book by itself. However, you do need to understand that most Web-based development involves a request made by a client using a protocol such as HTTP and that there is a server that fulfills that request in the form of a response. That is different from other distributed development because as soon as the client receives the response from the server, the connection is usually gone. In other words, no state is maintained from call to call. There are exceptions to this rule, but in general, after a response is returned to the client, the server forgets about the client. This is a big difference from the way things normally work.