INTERNET PROGRAMMING
An Internet application is a client-server application that uses standard Internet protocols for connecting the client to the server. You can use exactly the same techniques to create a true Internet application, which is available publicly through the World-Wide Web, or to create an intranet application. An intranet application is one which runs on your corporate intranet, and is only available to the staff in your corporation. Whenever we talk about Internet applications, we mean either true Internet applications or intranet applications. For an introduction to the World-Wide Web, see the appendix Introduction to the World-Wide Web.
Internet applications are thin-client, thick-server. This means that the client end, the part the end-user sees and interacts with, is only responsible for the user-interface. The client runs on a Web browser - the standard tool for accessing the Internet. All the processing is done at the server end, where your corporate data is.
Because your applications use standard Internet protocols for client-server communications, you can make your applications cross-platform. The server-side programs are written in Micro Focus COBOL, so you can run them on UNIX servers or Windows NT (you need to purchase Micro Focus NetExpress to run applications on Windows NT).
The server-side program for an Internet application communicates with the client through the Web server software for the machine. The interface between a COBOL program and the Web server running it is transparent to the programmer, and you can use two interfaces without code changes:
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These are explained in more detail in the chapter Building Internet Programs. By default, all applications created with Server Express are built for use with CGI (supported by all Web servers), and we recommend that you develop and debug applications using CGI. You can convert any COBOL CGI program to NSAPI by changing compilation and build settings, and rebuilding the program. However, to obtain the full advantages of a NSAPI program, it should be thread-enabled.
The client-side user-interface can be written using standard HTML forms which can be used by any forms-capable Web browser; the user interferace can therefore be deployed on UNIX, Windows, Macintosh or OS/2
