It is no longer enough for Web application developers to be proficient in just one platform. As platforms grow and evolve and new ones arise, developers must be able to transfer their proficiency across platforms in order to design, develop and debug complex Web applications effectively. This book uncovers the underlying core technologies that developers need to understand to help them learn new APIs and application frameworks more quickly.Web Application Architecture: Principles, protocols and practices provides an in-depth examination of the basic concepts and general principles associated with Web application development. It explains the underlying protocols and languages that support Web application development, anddelineates the best practices associated with building robust applications. It describes mechanisms for providing Web access to heterogeneous data sources including relational databases and multimedia.Includes chapters on: Internet protocols - from TCP/IP to HTTP and beyond software components - servers, browsers, proxies and agents the dynamic web - how web applications present dynamic data markup languages - HTML and XML future directions and emerging technologiesThis book explains the skills that developers need to design and build complex and sophisticated Web applications that are also scaleable, extensible, maintainable, and reusable.