Exercise 10: Posting shenanigans

I just don't understand blogger sometimes. I had published the blog (Answers 1-6) and the tables were all over the shop. I have just done a cut and paste of the same code, and republished. Amazingly the result looks like it was supposed to. There could be something in that I used Windows live writer in this instance to re-publish, whereas I used blogger to post originally. Unfortunately, if you had been following my blog, then you would have known that i experienced the exact opposite scenario earlier on in the journey. Those blogs (Karen posted comments) may no longer exist, as it was very much a learning curve in the early days, and reorganisation of the material was in order.

Exercise 10:Answers 7-12

7. What are the differences between HTML and DHTML?

   DHTML: Dynamic HTML. An extension of HTML that enables, among other things, the inclusion of small animations and dynamic menus in Web pages. DHTML code makes use of style sheets and JavaScript.

   DHTML sites are dynamic in nature. DHTML uses client side scripting to change variables in the presentation which affects the look and function of an otherwise static page. DHTML characteristics are the functions while a page is viewed, rather than generating a unique page with each page load (a dynamic website).

   On the other hand, HTML is static. HTML sites relies solely upon client-side technologies. This means the pages of the site do not require any special processing from the server side before they go to the browser. In other words, the pages are always the same for all visitors - static. HTML pages have no dynamic content, as in the examples above

8. Why was XHTML developed? Do you think this addresses most of the HTML weaknesses?

   According to (W3C)The Most Important Differences:

   • XHTML elements must be properly nested
   • XHTML elements must always be closed
   • XHTML elements must be in lowercase
   • XHTML documents must have one root element

9. What are the similarities between JavaScript, VBScript and ZOPE’s DTML?

   DTML is a server side scripting language, like SSI, PHP, ASP, and JSP. This means that DTML commands are executed by Zope at the server, and the result of that execution is sent to your web browser. By contrast, client-side scripting languages like Javascript are not processed by the server, but are rather sent to and executed by your web browser. (Zope)

10. What are the similarities and differences between ASP, JSP and PHP? (WebHostingLogic)
    • PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)an open source, server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages.
    • ASP (Active Server Pages) is a Microsoft promoted technology to enable HTML pages to be dynamic and interactive by embedding scripts, either VB Script or Jscript
    • JSP (Java Server Pages) are web-pages that include scripts that can modify a page before sending it to the user. Similar to ASP pages, but produced by Sun Microsystems
    
    (BlogPost)
    
11. What are the differences between the various approaches to scripting?

    There are two ways of scripting viz. one on the client side and the other on the server side. PHP and ASP code are server side scripting technologies. While JSP supports client side scripting.

    On Server side scripting, when a user in a website request for any services, the request goes to the server of the website and the appropriate output is displayed after the request is processed from the remote server.

    In case of client side scripting, the request is executed on the client side and the appropriate result is show with the help of script. VBScript is used for this purpose.

    (BlogPost)

12. List some of the shareware or freely available tools for web design. In addition to a good HTML editor, what utilities could be very handy to the developer?

A search on google for "free web design tools" returned 8030 results. Top of the list is www.webweaver.nu. This provides links to clipart and graphics, online tools, web design resources and tips and tricks.

There are lots of other tools available, and it would once again come down to getting the right tool for the users requirements.

What the users requirements are for developing a web site will determine what tools they need. Some basic questions to answer would be:

• Is the site going to be dynamic or static?
• Will a database be required?
• Who are the intended audience?
• How will the site be hosted?

Utilities useful to a developer include css editor, icon and graphical design tools, and web page template designers. Notepad is always handy.

References
BlogPost. Retrieved 15 June 2009, From http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4951080038221931058/posts/default
WebHostingLogic, Inc. COMPARISON OF PHP, JSP AND ASP. Retrieved 15 June 2009, from https://www.webhostinglogic.com/support/support-topics/php-jsp-asp.html
WikiAnswers.com. What is the difference between HTML and DHTML?. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_HTML_and_DHTML
W3C. Differnces Between XHTML and HTML. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://www.w3schools.com/XHTML/xhtml_html.asp
Zope. Chapter 4: Dynamic Content with DTML. Retrieved 15 June 2009, from http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_5_edition/DTML.stx

Exercise 10: Answers 1-6

1. List some application servers in competition with ZOPE. Access the web and find the latest version of the application servers mentioned in the text. When were they released? Can you make any conclusion about the release cycle of Internet software in comparison to other business software (e.g. spreadsheet, word processor, accounting packages)?

   If by "in competition" Ken means Open source applications then competing applications server platforms would include (Wikipedia): Appaserver, Base4, and Spring Framework.

   If however Ken is referring to Application servers in general then the list is substantially longer and can be defined by type:

   Type	Name
   Java Application Servers	J2EE
   -	WebSphere Application Server
   -	WebLogic Server (Oracle)
   -	JBoss (Red Hat)
   -	JRun (Adobe Systems)
   -	Apache Geronimo (Apache Software Foundation)
   -	Sun Java System Application Server
   -	SAP Netweaver AS (ABAP/Java) (SAP)
   -	Glassfish Application Server.
   Microsoft Platform	.NET Framework
   Zend platform	Zend Server
   Other platforms	Appaserver
   -	Base4
   -	Zope
   -	Spring Framework

   In the text (I am going to presume we are talking about the study guide) Ken mentions the following:

   Application Server	Latest Version	Release Date
   ZOPE 2	2.11.3	2 May 2009
   ZOPE 3	3.4.0	29 Jan 2009
   JBoss	5.1.0.GA	23 May 2009
   Enhydra	7.4-1	11 Dec 2008
   IBMs Websphere	6.0.2.35	5 June 2009

   The release dates for web software is very recent. Almost all have a release date within the last 4-5 weeks, with frequent updates being released. Enhydra seems to be out of date. This is often the case with web products. Other applications and business software that is installed typically has a much longer release cycle.

2. List the main Web servers. What types of companies are offering the leading servers? Distinguish between open source and proprietary products. Who is providing support for the products? How much do they cost? Do you think the Web server purchase price is a significant factor in budget considerations for a large e-commerce initiative?

   (WikiPedia)

   Vendor	Product	Web Sites Hosted	Percent	Open Source
   Apache	Apache HTTP Server	96,531,033	52.05%	Yes
   Microsoft	Internet Information Services	61,023,474	32.90%	No
   Google	Google Web Server	9,864,303	5.32%	Yes
   Nginx	Nginx	3,462,551	1.87%	Yes
   Lighttpd	Lighttpd	2,989,416	1.61%	Yes
   Oversee	Oversee	1,847,039	1.00%	Yes
   Others	-	9,756,650	5.26%	?
   Total	-	185,474,466	100.00%	-

   (Wikipedia) Essentially all web servers are provided free. Consequently web server purchase price (in terms of software) is a negligable concern. Ongoing support and maintenance costs are where proprietary businesses such as Microsoft make there money. Microsoft provides a paid support avenue. Community forums provide a support mechanism for the open source solutions. Additionally companies have set themselves up to provide paid support for open source systems.

3. Go to the website of IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Sybase. Is there any mention of e-commerce associated with their database products? What suite or partnership do they list with related e-commerce offerings? How do they compare with open source products like MySQL?

   These were not easy to obtain at first. So I just went to the websites of each of the 4 companies and used 2 search terms 'e-commerce' and 'e-commerce Databases' to return the following results table:

   Company	Website	SearchTerm:e-commerce	SearchTerm:e-commerce databases
   IBM	www.ibm.com	19,396	11,842
   Microsoft	www.microsoft.com	169,000	6,650
   Oracle	www.oracle.com	2,436	529
   Sybase	www.sybase.com	109	56

4. Access the web and find the current rate for website hosting. What are the criteria used by the ISP for pricing? There are a large number of companies providing website hosting services for various dollar amounts. Generally they all seem to have a monthly charge. This is based upon the amount of storage required and the expected bandwidth that will be used. Some services charge per MB for excess usage. An example plan is from Westnethosting
   
5. Why is the perception getting stronger that integration will become a critical factor in coming days? What is the role of ERP within the enterprise software architecture?

   (techFAQ)ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP is a way to integrate the data and processes of an organization into one single system. Usually ERP systems will have many components including hardware and software, in order to achieve integration, most ERP systems use a unified database to store data for various functions found throughout the organization.

   Integration is an extremely important part to ERP's. ERP's main goal is to integrate data and processes from all areas of an organization and unify it for easy access and work flow. ERP's usually accomplish integration by creating one single database that employs multiple software modules providing different areas of an organization with various business functions

6. What is Customer Resource Management and why is it important to e-commerce?

   (techFAQ)Customer Resource Management(CRM) is a strategy for doing business.

   CRM methodologies are focused on building individual customer relationships for the purpose of creating and maintain a loyal customer base.

   Internet users are very fickle beings. If a user has a bad experience at a site they are not likely to return. So CRM is about getting and manageing return business.

References
Enhydra. Enhydra Server. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://forge.ow2.org/project/showfiles.php?group_id=21
IBM. Support & downloads. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://www.IBM.com
JBoss. JBoss Application Server Downloads. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://www.jboss.org/jbossas/downloads/
techFAQ. What is CRM software? Retrieved 15 June 2009, from http://www.tech-faq.com/crm-software.shtml
techFAQ. What is ERP? Retrieved 15 June 2009, from http://www.tech-faq.com/erp.shtml
Wikipedia. Application server. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Server
Wikipedia. Comparison of web server software. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_servers
Wikipedia. Web server. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server
Zope. Current Zope Releases. Retrieved 7 June 2009, from http://www.zope.org/Products/

Exercise 9: Second Attempt

Well it is sometimes hard to see the wood from the trees.

It also helped when I read (Ince, p129-150) where he discusses Browsers and HTML. To date I have had little to no exposure to developing web pages. Thanks to this blog I am finally getting the hang of HTML.

So back to exercise 9. As it turns out my initial thoughts in Exercise 9: First attempt were correct. This is basically a rehash of what we did in exercises 6-8.

I was getting lost in the HTML on the entry form. Thanks to (Ince) I twigged to the fact that I needed to use the SUBMIT method on the form and the GET method in the php file to retrieve the information.

So here is the input form and the HTML to create it:

and the php file that parses the submitted data and outputs it.

As you can see from the output, to answer part 3 of exercise 9 yes I can modify the script to process the form.

Having just written that, the question poses another question. What does Ken mean in step 2 when he says list the steps involved in processing the form?

What steps did he have in mind? I can see that

1. use the get method for each parsed parameter to retrieve the value.
2. use the value to do something

Maybe his point is that it is a relatively trivial exercise to extract the information.

References Ince, D. (2006). Developing Distributed & E-commerce Applications: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA.

Observations: Topic 4

The Study guide (p28) says "[See Figure 2-4 on Web server-enabling technologies in Conallen, p.23]"

The Resources section of the Subject outline only has Conallen listed as a recommended resource. Whilst nice to have it isnt a requirement. As a result I dont have a copy.

This makes viewing this particular reference difficult. I am not sure if there are many more direct references in the study guide for this text, but if not then it would seem a little harsh to not just provide the diagram in the Study Guide.

Exercise 9: First attempt

On first look, this looked the same as what we did in exercises 6,7 and 8

Consequently I just revised my efforts from Exercise 6 and got some output on the form. Alas, the url passed to the form does not contain the required parameter string. So now I need to look at some Javascript to work out how to do this. To google we go...

Unfortunately the site that I have gone to http://javascript.internet.com/forms/ list 1420 entries for the search term "process html forms data". Narrowing this down could take a while. However on the upside there seems to be some code that deals with creation of lookups and validation. All of which are relevant to parsing form data.

Exercise 10: Application server platforms in e-commerce

1. List some application servers in competition with ZOPE. Access the web and find the latest version of the application servers mentioned in the text. When were they released? Can you make any conclusion about the release cycle of Internet software in comparison to other business software (e.g. spreadsheet, word processor, accounting packages)?
2. List the main Web servers. What types of companies are offering the leading servers? Distinguish between open source and proprietary products. Who is providing support for the products? How much do they cost? Do you think the Web server purchase price is a significant factor in budget considerations for a large e-commerce initiative?
3. Go to the website of IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Sybase. Is there any mention of e-commerce associated with their database products? What suite or partnership do they list with related e-commerce offerings? How do they compare with open source products like MySQL?
   Access the web and find the current rate for website hosting. What are the criteria used by the ISP for pricing?
4. Why is the perception getting stronger that integration will become a critical factor in coming days?
5. What is the role of ERP within the enterprise software architecture?
6. What is Customer Resource Management and why is it important to e-commerce?
7. What are the differences between HTML and DHTML?
8. Why was XHTML developed? Do you think this addresses most of the HTML weaknesses?
9. What are the similarities between JavaScript, VBScript and ZOPE’s DTML?
10. What are the similarities and differences between ASP, JSP and PHP?
11. What are the differences between the various approaches to scripting?
12. List some of the shareware or freely available tools for web design. In addition to a good HTML editor, what utilities could be very handy to the developer?

Exercise 9: Web form design and processing: A basis for e-commerce interaction

1. Design the form
   “Retrofit” the form data string above for buying some French perfume into the HTML form fields and submit button on the Web page form.
   
2. Write the script
   Script archives exist for PERL, Python and JavaScript. Search the Web for a script that processes the HTML forms data. Read the code and list the steps involved in processing the form.
   
3. Can you modify the script to process the form?