RE: CGI program in JAVA -- JAVA400-L

Joe,

I think your point is well taken that any CGI can accomplish most of the
requirements of e-commerce/e-transaction.  Client-tracking/session-tracking
is one of the requirements that a CGI doesn't do well.  Servlets do a good
job in that arena.  Of course there are means of client-tracking available
through cookies even in CGIs - but servlets do a better job.  There is also
the issue of performance - and a big one at that.

CGI was designed for when having a hundred visitors to your site in a day
was an event. When a Web server receives a CGI request, it needs to start a
completely different program(a thread, if you will), allow that program to
run, allow that program to close down, and then return the resulting text to
the Web browser. This is fine when a page is requested once a minute, but
what about a page requested once a second?  We have servers that are
requested about 60 times a second during peak times.  To make matters worse,
most applications need some kind of database IO. This means a new database
connection is created every single time the CGI runs, taking up to several
seconds each time to process the request. The overall effect is like trying
to feed an entire town with two chefs running back and forth from the
kitchen, cooking, and cleaning the dishes. It may have worked back then, but
it sure doesn't work very well today and certainly won't work tomorrow.

That brings me to my next point about servlets - one can design a good
servlet and you will be charmed by it's performance - but if one emulates
what one was doing in a CGI then the results will be terrible.  Use of
reflection classes is strongly encouraged to avoid coding for the same type
of form with different fields again and again.  Use of maintaing state is
encouraged by communicating between the servlets and applets.

Just my 2 cents worth!
-Salim

Salim Chandani
Sr. Research Consultant, R&D
Kingland Systems Corporation
P: (515) 440-6010 ext. 3007
F: (515) 440-6009
E: salim.chandani@kingland.com
W: http://www.kingland.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-java400-l@midrange.com
> [mailto:owner-java400-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Joe Teff
> Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 1999 8:08 AM
> To: JAVA400-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: CGI program in JAVA
>
>
> >1. Servlets are available on version 4.3 and are superior to cgi.
> >2. Net.data was improved and for tactic solution it can be fine. Yet,
> >not net.data nor cgi are considered modern "big" solution.
>
> I would have to disagree that cgi is somehow considered undesirable
> because it is "old". Java holds alot of promise, but is not the only game
> in town. Nor, do I think it will be the only game in town. There are many
> shops with RPG programmers that can develop web pages with CGI
> that satisfy all of thier needs.
>
> I am not debating whether Java is good or bad, nor am I saying that
> Java should be ignored. Quite the opposite as I am in the process of
> learning Java myself. I just get excited when I see things dismissed as
> being antiquated because it's not the new, cool thing. After all, that
> same argument has been used to write obituaries about the AS/400.
>
> Now, if you would like to explain why you feel servlets are superior to
> CGI I'm eager to listen. Please be specific. Just because it's Java is
> not enough. The fact that it can be run "other" platforms is very
> important to some, but not to everybody.
>
> Joe Teff
>
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