what are web applications?

Question

I have to give a seminar on "Web Applications" at my Computer Institute. For which i have no time. I have searched the web, i got a little information, but could not understand it. Please give me a gist on Web Applications. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You need to find a new school. If you're going to a "Computer Institute" and you don't know what a web application is or you can't find it online you should examine your education choice.



That being said, a web application is a website that has functionality in much the same way that a normal application does. Examples would be Google Docs or Aviary.

Answer 2

They are computer programs. Instead of being something that you download and install to each and every computer where you want to use the program, you just use the program in your web browser (such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari or Chrome). The benefits include the fact that it doesn't matter if you're running Windows, Mac, or Linux, or what version of any of those you're on. As long as you have a web browser, you can use the web application. You don't have to download web applications, which means that you can use them at Internet Cafes and such.



For a very good example of a web application, go to http://docs.google.com (you'll need a Google account, which you can get for free). Also of interesting note, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail are all web applications. Consider that if you didn't have a Yahoo Mail account (which you use your web browser to do your e-mailing), then you'd have to use Outlook Express or some other regular e-mail program.



Just for kicks, I'll also mention that Yahoo Answers can be considered a web application. It's a program on the web. This program allows you to ask and answer questions. Isn't it nice that you don't have to download a Yahoo Answers program to your computer in order to use Yahoo Answers?

Answer 3

In software engineering, a web application or webapp [1] is an application that is accessed via web browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. It is also a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language (such as HTML, JavaScript, Java, etc.) and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.



Web applications are popular due to the ubiquity of web browsers, and the convenience of using a web browser as a client, sometimes called a thin client. The ability to update and maintain web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity. Common web applications include webmail, online retail sales, online auctions, wikis and many other functions.



[edit] History

In earlier types of client-server computing, each application had its own client program which served as its user interface and had to be separately installed on each user's personal computer. An upgrade to the server part of the application would typically require an upgrade to the clients installed on each user workstation, adding to the support cost and decreasing productivity.



In contrast, web applications use web documents written in a standard format such as HTML (and more recently XHTML), which are supported by a variety of web browsers.



Generally, each individual web page is delivered to the client as a static document, but the sequence of pages can provide an interactive experience, as user input is returned through web form elements embedded in the page markup. During the session, the web browser interprets and displays the pages, and acts as the universal client for any web application.



In 1995, Netscape introduced a client-side scripting called JavaScript, which allowed programmers to add some dynamic elements to the user interface that ran on the client side. Until then, all the data had to be sent to the server for processing, and the results were delivered through static HTML pages sent back to the client.



In 1996, Macromedia introduced Flash, a vector animation player that could be added to browsers as a plugin to embed animations on the web pages. It allowed the use of a scripting language to program interactions on the client side with no need to communicate with the server.



In 1999, the "web application" concept was introduced in the Java language in the Servlet Specification version 2.2. [2.1?]. [1][2] At that time both JavaScript and XML had already been developed, but AJAX had still not yet been coined and the XMLHttpRequest object had only been recently introduced on Internet Explorer 5 as an ActiveX object. [3]



In 2005, AJAX was coined, and applications like Gmail started to make their client sides more and more interactive.



More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application

Answer 4

Web applications are applications that are hosted on the internet (usually behind a company firewall). Since it is SOOOOO much easier to build a GUI with the internet then it is to design a custom GUI from scratch, a lot of companies like web apps for things like time tracking, expense reports, community calendars, etc. The other big advantage web apps have is that they are cross platform by nature. This means in companies where you may run 2 or more operating system you don't have to create multiple versions of the same app (this is a bigger problem in the bigger IT shops like Sun, IBM, HP, etc).



Java is the main tool used in the industry to create web apps.