Within the last couple of years, a phrase has begun to emerge in the digital context of the internet:
“Web Application”
(Hopefully the enigmatic blue gives it a nice effect.) Some have sneered at it, others poked it with a stick, many started abusing the phrase because they thought it made them sound cool (like “The Cloud”, oohhhhh! Servers!), and, lastly, many programmers bemoaned that they’d been making them for years.
So what is a Web Application?
Simply, a web application is an executable that sits happily on a server somewhere, and is accessed via web. (Huh, sort of sounds less glorious when put that way.) This definition is almost unhelpful, however, as most people hardly even stop to consider how a web page is constructed at all, much less where it comes from. I might as well say that it’s made by tiny gnomes that live in a server far, far away. Who cares? The real question is: “Why? what’s the advantage?” I’m glad you asked! Let’s work our way up.
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