Brian Russell

Session tracking is the process of maintaining information, or state, about Web site visitors as they move from page to page. It requires some work on the part of the Web developer since there's no built-in mechanism for it. The connection from a browser to a Web server occurs over the stateless Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). There are a number of ways to handle session tracking, but our focus is on the easy-to-use yet powerful HttpSession interface provided by the Java Servlet specification. Before we get into the HttpSession interface, let's look at some other ways of maintaining state. Session-Tracking Techniques At one time Web developers used Web site visitors' IP addresses to track the sessions. This approach was inflexible and had many flaws. The main problem was that proxy servers eliminated the use of individual IP addresses. Users no longer had unique... (more)

Managing HttpSession Objects

Java servlet technology provides developers with functionality, scalability, and portability that can't be found in other server-side languages. One feature of the Java servlet specification that's commonly used, and sometimes misused, is the HttpSession interface. This simple interface allows you to maintain a session or state for Web site visitors. In my previous article ("Introduction to Session Management," [JDJ, Vol. 7, issue 9]), I introduced you to session management and the HttpSession interface. In that article, we walked through using the HttpSession API to create, use... (more)

How To Pick A Programming Language: Back To Two Tiers and Plain JSP

There comes a time, for many Web sites, when the transition from static HTML to dynamic HTML has to be made. Whether it's a static company Web site that needs to become a dynamic online store, or a simple collection of family pictures that's become too large to manage with HTML alone, a decision has to be made to move to an environment that makes it easier to build and maintain the site. Deciding to use server-side programming to create your site on-the-fly can become the only option, but what language you decide to use can be a difficult and important decision. Server-Side Opti... (more)