Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming, Third Edition

Multiplatform Executable Content

Now that you've seen how Java-enabled Web sites appear to the user, think about the requirements of such executable content. When you write a Java-based Web page, you want the code to work on the user's remote computer no matter what kind of computer the remote user uses.

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Common gateway interface (CGI) programming provides the primitive interaction you often see on non-Java Web sites.

Whereas most language compilers such as Visual C++ turn programs into a machine-dependent executable program, Java development tools do not go quite that far. All Java compilers compile your Java code into a special machine-independent ...