NES offers the widest range of options for Web application developers, including CGI for simple to moderately complex forms; Netscape API (NSAPI) for more complex user information submission and interactivity; Java servlets; JSP; and Server Side JavaScript. Armed with Java, JavaScript and HTML on the front end, programmers should be able to build applications of any complexity for NES.

Netscape recommended that we use JSP, Java servlets and the JDBC API for database connectivity. To develop the Java code, programmers need tools that are not part of NES, mostly available from Sun Microsystems, such as the Java Development Kit (JDK). Sun and Netscape work very closely together to integrate Java offerings with Netscape's servers.

While Java's popularity began as a write-once run-anywhere client programming language, Java is most at home on the server. The combo of Java on the server and Dynamic HTML on the client offers the best promise for a superb development tandem.

Options supported by NES on the server side allow the programmer to pick and choose the level of complexity and functionality available in the application. Programmers need not stick to a certain level of Java support, but can mix and match JSP with Java servlets and Enterprise JavaBeans.

But the server-side Java route isn't easy. For example, we wrote a "Hello World" program in ASP or PHP in one or two lines; writing the same simple code as a servlet is more of a chore. Once the code is written, you have to compile it and place it in the preconfigured/servlets directory. Tools for writing Java servlets vary from Sun's command-line SDK to the more feature- ready Integrated Development Environments such as Symantec's Visual Café and IBM's Visual Age for Java.

JSP, like ASP, is a mix of HTML and special scripting syntax processed on the server side and served as pure HTML to the client. There is nothing sexy about this scripting language, though JavaBeans may set it apart. Under NES you can develop complex applications using JSP that invoke Enterprise JavaBeans on the server side, allowing you to reduce your development efforts and leverage existing work.

While NES supports server-side JavaScript, it must be precompiled on the server and requires special setup and configuration. JSP, which works more like ASP and PHP, is likely to eliminate the need for JavaScript.

Ahmad Abualsamid is a senior partner with 1Internet Corp. of Chicago. Send your comments on this article to him at ahmad@execpc.com.