One advantage a Java applet has over a scripted program is that it’s in compiled form, so the source code isn’t available to the client. On the other hand, a Java applet can be decompiled without too much trouble, but hiding your code is often not an important issue. Two other factors can be important. As you will see later in this book, a compiled Java applet can comprise many modules and take multiple server “hits” (accesses) to download. (In Java 1.1 and higher this is minimized by Java archives, called JAR files, that allow all the required modules to be packaged together and compressed for a single download.) A scripted program will just be integrated into the Web page as part of its text (and will generally be smaller and reduce server hits). This could be important to the responsiveness of your Web site. Another factor is the all-important learning curve. Regardless of what you’ve heard, Java is not a trivial language to learn. If you’re a Visual Basic programmer, moving to VBScript will be your fastest solution, and since it will probably solve most typical client/server problems you might be hard pressed to justify learning Java. If you’re experienced with a scripting language you will certainly benefit from looking at JavaScript or VBScript before committing to Java, since they might fit your needs handily and you’ll be more productive sooner.to run its applets.
To some degree, the competitor to Java is Microsoft’s ActiveX, although it takes a completely different approach. ActiveX was originally a Windows-only solution, although it is now being developed via an independent consortium to become cross-platform. Effectively, ActiveX says “if your program connects to its environment just so, it can be dropped into a Web page and run under a browser that supports ActiveX.” (IE directly supports ActiveX and Netscape does so using a plug-in.) Thus, ActiveX does not constrain you to a particular language. If, for example, you’re already an experienced Windows programmer using a language such as C++, Visual Basic, or Borland’s Delphi, you can create ActiveX components with almost no changes to your programming knowledge. ActiveX also provides a path for the use of legacy code in your Web pages.
Java和因特网
既然Java不过另一种类型的程序设计语言，大家可能会奇怪它为什么值得如此重视，为什么还有这么多的人认为它是计算机程序设计的一个里程碑呢？如果您来自一个传统的程序设计背景，那么答案在刚开始的时候并不是很明显。Java除了可解决传统的程序设计问题以外，还能解决World Wide Web(万文网)上的编程问题。论文网
Web最初采用的“服务器－浏览器”方案可提供交互式内容，但这种交互能力完全由服务器提供，为服务器和因特网带来了不小的负担。服务器一般为客户浏览器产生静态网页，由后者简单地解释并显示出来。基本HTML语言提供了简单的数据收集机制：文字输入框、复选框、单选钮、列表以及下拉列表等，另外还有一个按钮，只能由程序规定重新设置表单中的数据，以便回传给服务器。用户提交的信息通过所有Web服务器均能支持的“通用网关接口”（CGI）回传到服务器。包含在提交数据中的文字指示CGI该如何操作。最常见的行动是运行位于服务器的一个程序。那个程序一般保存在一个名为“cgi-bin”的目录中（按下Web页内的一个按钮时，请注意一下浏览器顶部的地址窗，经常都能发现“cgi-bin”的字样）。大多数语言都可用来编制这些程序，但其中最常见的是Perl。这是由于Perl是专为文字的处理及解释而设计的，所以能在任何服务器上安装和使用，无论采用的处理器或操作系统是什么。 Java和因特网英文文献和中文翻译(3):http://www.youerw.com/fanyi/lunwen_28969.html