NYCPHP Meetup

[Anirudh Zala]

On Wednesday 18 October 2006 18:24, Phil Duffy wrote:
> I am sorry if this question appears to be off-topic, but perhaps someone
> can refer me to the correct forum.  I had programmed in approximately a
> dozen languages previously before dabbling in PHP a couple years ago.  Now
> that PHP 5 is truly object-oriented, I find it to be the most powerful of
> the languages with which I am familiar.  As remarkable as the Web is, I am
> coming to the conclusion that it has some severe limitations for the kinds
> of complex applications that were the standard in the client/server days. 
> I know that going back to client/server is not the answer and suspect that
> somewhere someone is working on an Internet-based system that could
> ultimately replace the page-oriented Web.  Can anybody point me in that
> direction?

Web is made of lot of components like protocols, browsers, markup languages 
etc. where some of them are not co-ordinated or there lacks standardization 
of communication between client and server.

Answer of this question lies in bringing changes in the way Web works by 
applying certain standards (communication, information interchange etc.) 
between applications. So client-server technology, according to me, can be 
replaced with client-agent-server technology where client and server do not 
communicate directly with each other like it is now.

Agents will be similar like desktop application (like email clients etc.) that 
will fetch information from various servers according to user's requirement, 
will process those information and will finally present to user in easier 
way. But it is needs standardization between different servers about how to 
request query and fetch results.

This can be explained best with the example of "Flight booking" system. For 
example a user wants to book a flight between 2 cities. Traditionally, at 
this moment, user has to go to various websites (in normal case, unless 
he/she has chosen single website as a favorite one) and browse various pages, 
fill in required information like source, destination, date, type of trip  
etc. ti book the flight. If user is not satisfied with date-time or fare 
he/she has to do almost same thing over other website.

Here assume that we have an Agent application (assume "Flight booker" 
software) that can reside on client side that will have a common form to be 
filled up. Once required information is filled in, application will query 
different servers of airlines (using XML etc.) to obtain information that 
matches criteria of requirement, will fetch related information from there, 
if matches, and will present to user for further processing. But this system 
needs co-ordination and standardization between those airlines about how to 
avail information in standard way. This is lacking at this moment, maybe due 
to business point of view also, that is why users has to go to visit various 
websites. Advantage of Agent system is that here only related data is 
transfered through web which is only 30% compared to displaying whole page of 
the websites (where 70% of content is transfered to browser just as static 
information i.e HTML etc. about how to display that page).

Another example is of email clients. Email system has standardization about 
sending and receiving mails that is why Email clients could be developed and 
can be kept at client side.

But since users are not still Data centric, building such Agent applications 
for rest of web services will be difficult. Because people don't know what is 
best for them. So they would like animated Submit button more than 
traditional gray-black buttons. If other website provides more attractive 
stuff then people will go there. This thing hampers integration and  
co-ordination of web componenets. Another problem is that Web is not in hands 
of single governing body, that is why changes suggested takes lot of time to 
come into real implementation (however they are implemented but slowly).

I might not be exactly answering your query, but this is how I see Web2 from 
user point of view. I want to write lot of things about this topic but due to 
time limitations, can't write much. But this was nice topic for discussion.

Thanks

Anirudh Zala

>
> My primary concern with the Web is that it seems to be a force-fit of
> page-orientation and statelessness to structured programming/object
> orientation, which I find to be inherently task-oriented.  Applications
> that depend heavily upon related records require that users perform all
> kinds of browses.  Under those circumstances, managing communication among
> objects becomes a nightmare because it requires the application programmer
> to predict communication paths to objects and manually handle session
> variables that are not task-scoped (they are by definition,
> session-scoped).  It appears to me that there is a role for session
> variables, but it is not the task.
>
> The force-fit described above is particularly apparent when programming in
> an MVC and validate/process/display workflow environment.  While many
> programmers have reservations about the need for these disciplines, it has
> been my experience that they become increasingly important as the size and
> complexity of an application system increases.
>
> Any thoughts will be appreciated.
>
> Phil Duffy