Web Architecture Terminology

A web application 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 (e.g. Rails) provides a lot of starter code to make the development of a web application much easier. 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.

Chapter 1 in the Beginning Rails 2 book provides an overview of the MVC components. Also, see page 128 (Figure 6-1) for a more detailed presentation.

MVC Diagram