Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World, 2nd Edition

5.3 THE CHALLENGES OF LIBERATING DATA

In this section, I want to go back to basics, as it were. By this, I mean that I'd like to take you to a point where we can truly appreciate why the Web works, from a technical point of view. I strongly believe that once we understand a technology from the ground up, as if we invented it ourselves, we then gain a lot of benefits in figuring out how to use the technology. This is true of the Web. Most of us use it and we understand the concept behind it, but we don't really know the next layer down. I'm going to explain the fundamentals of the Web. Even if you understand the Web, it might still be worth a read. I have never found anyone on a course that I have given who hasn't benefited from this lesson, including the ‘experts’.

With computing of any kind, we are concerned with processing and accessing information (or content). Today, thanks to the IT revolution in general, virtually all useful information resides in databases. That is the first observation that we need to keep in mind:

Observation No. 1 – most electronic information in the world sits in databases.

Databases are extremely efficient systems for storing collections of related information in a structured way that can be easily retrieved, organised and updated. The most widespread type of database is the relational database, where information is stored in tables. Each table will contain data that has a particular grouping, such as a table of customers, a table of products, and ...