Maintaining state is possible with CGI using hidden variables, by encoding the URL, or by maintaining a state file on the server, it's just not easy or efficient.
There's that silly thing known as cookies that a few web sites use.
Cookies are just another type of bandage, trying to patch the same wounds hidden variables and URL encoding are trying to patch. They are all attempts of hammering squares through round holes, creating "state" using a stateless protocol.

Second, every set of question/answers causes the web server to execute a unique instance of the CGI script. This is pretty expensive, especially on a high volume web site which may have 100 instances of a CGI script executing at any given moment, each, perhaps, with its own Perl interpreter.
How about mod_perl or fast CGI?
Yeah, what about them? Sure, you don't have to fire another instance of Perl. But you still need a three way handshake to create the TCP/IP connection (it usually takes longer to render a page and type in a response that it takes for the keep-alive timeout to expire), and the server still needs to do all the house keeping dealing with another request. And that's assuming there's just "a server". Enterprise systems often consist of many components.

She's really confused here. Just what are those other companies using?
Java, probably. I'm not at all a big fan of Java (but neither of CGI), but Java applets allow you to push a program to the client, deal with all the intermediate results *at the client*, and only make a connection again when there's an end result. Now, I realize that Java has its drawbacks too, but Java applets certainly fix some of CGI's problems.

Abigail

In reply to Re: Ignorant Article by Abigail-II
in thread Ignorant Article by Anonymous Monk

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