Beginning Java™ EE 6 Platform with GlassFish™ 3: From Novice to Professional

Chapter 11. Pages and Components

We live in an Internet world. With our transactional back end processing thousands of requests, communicating with heterogeneous systems with web services, we need a presentation layer to interact with end users, preferably one that runs in a browser. Browsers are everywhere, and user interfaces are richer, more dynamic, and easier to use. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are gaining in popularity as users expect more from their browsing experience. They need to consult catalogs of books and CDs online, but they also want to access e-mail and documents, receive e-mail notification, or have parts of their browser refreshed when a server event occurs. Add to that the Web 2.0 philosophy whereby people can share any ...