Developing Applications for the Web: Exploring Differences between Traditional and World Wide Web Application Development

Abstract

The use of the Internet, and the World Wide Web in particular, has grown at a phenomenal rate. The Internet, the world’s largest computer network, grew from approximately 25,000 connected networks with over 6.6 million computers worldwide in 1996 (Neubarth, 1996) to more than 50,000 networks and 16 million computers today (Conger & Mason, 1998). The fastest growing resource on the Internet is the World Wide Web (hereafter called the Web). Between 1994 and 1996, the Web grew from 100 sites to 100,000 sites housing more than a million Web pages (Neubarth, 1996), and as of January, 1999, an electronic survey of web hosts found over 43 million sites (Network Wizards, 1999). Over 80% of America’s Fortune 500 companies have some type of Web presence (The Economist, 1997).