Web Architecture for Server-Side Scripting

A web application (using server-side scripting) dynamically creates HTML pages using content from a database. It also serves forms that allow users to update content in the database.

A web framework provides a lot of starter code to make the development of a web application much easier. Examples of web frameworks include ASP.Net (usually using C#), Java Server Pages (using java, not javascript), PHP and Ruby on Rails.

Modern web frameworks use the MVC (Model, View, Controller) architecture:

• Model -- specifies data organization. It includes code for supporting organization and database connection.
• Controller -- handles requests from the browser, accesses data from the model, performs calculations and calls a View for displaying a page.
• View -- Produces a dynamic HTML page based on information from the controller.

Rails also uses a routing system, which handles a request from the web browser and directs it to the right controller.