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This may be a stupid question, but what does "client/server" mean in this context? I would interpret it to mean any networked or Internet-based application tha
by buu700 6y ago
This may be a stupid question, but what does "client/server" mean in this context?
I would interpret it to mean any networked or Internet-based application that has both client- and server-side logic, which obviously isn't anything special in 2020, but it sounds like you're referring to something else that would now be considered outdated?
- ashtonkem 6y agoI think they mean a dedicated thick client using the OS’s UI framework, rather than a web browser.
- noizejoy 6y agoNot only the UI, but all of the business logic - so a very thick client indeed.
- willcipriano 6y agoI've always called these direct database applications. The implication that the client directly connects to the database without the benefit of a middle tier.
- naniwaduni 6y agoI might be totally off the mark here, but in context I assumed the contrast was with doing all work on a thick "client". A client-server architecture in principle lets you run thinner clients and offload the heavy work, but in practice the network would've been expensive. A modern analogue might be something like premature distributed computing.
- Throwaway111117 6y agoMaybe rather than: A modern analogue might be something like premature distributed computing A modern analogue might be n, where n is more familiar to the composer of this, or, the source of information determining the production of this text is most familiar with n, where n does not include the word premature
- noizejoy 6y agoIf my memory serves me right, distributed computing was the advent of smaller computers (back then often called mini computers like DEC Vax or IBM AS/400, but those were more like smaller mainframes, still using dumb terminals as frontends. But you’re right in saying that the original client/server had all of the UI and business logic on a very fat client - and the server only served the data over very low bandwith networks.
- C1sc0cat 6y agoSomething like Oracle forms with a custom clinet application talking to a database server.
- noizejoy 6y agoYeah - kind of, but Oracle forms originally didn’t even have a graphical client - that’s probably why Powerbuilder and Visual Basic dominated the early 90s. Also, Oracle was still fighting it out with Sybase in the mini computer dbms space.
- ako 6y agoOracle forms 2.3 & 3 where graphical terminal apps, starting forms 4.0 it also included windows (and X) clients.
- noizejoy 6y ago> This may be a stupid question, but what does "client/server" mean in this context? Not a stupid question at all, since terminology has been shifting over the decades. Back in the early 1990s, the original client/server generally meant all application code (logic and UI) on the client computer, and all the data on the server. So a very fat client. Database stored procedures (i.e. some logic on the server) only arrived on the scene later during that time, because the original architecture of all code on the client caused performance nightmares. But don’t get me started on the trials and tribulations of early stored procedures. They often caused more project turmoil rather than smoothen things out. — Partly because they weren’t good languages yet, partly because of amplifying developer vs. dba conflicts.
- ptx 6y agoWithout any server-side logic, I suppose user permissions must have been handled entirely by the database, with clients connecting as different database users? Did row-level security already exist in some databases at that time? Otherwise this must have been quite limiting.
- ako 6y agoRow level security was usually handled through database views.
- gmfawcett 6y agoThere were alternatives to stored procedures for centralization. I remember RPC and CORBA being hot topics around that time. The tiered architecture was a thing before the Web.