THE WEB IS DYNAMIC

THE WEB IS DYNAMIC

If you want a permanent copy of some information that’s stored on the web, you have to save it locally because the content can change any time, even while you’re viewing the page.

the web site for little brother fig 1.1

If you’re browsing that information, you don’t have to install a new version of the help system, buy another book, or call technical support to get updated information., just launch your browser and a check out what’s there .

If you’re publishing on the web, you can make sure that your information is up-to-date all the time. You don’t have to spend a lot of time re-releasing updated  documents. There’s no cost of materials. You don’t have to get bids on numbers of copies or quality of output. Color is free. And you won’t get calls from hapless customers who have a version of the book that was obsolete four years ago.

Consider a book published and distributed entirely online, such as thinking in java by Bruce  Eckel  (which you can find at www.mindview.net/books/TIJ/) .  he can correct any mistakes in the book and simply upload the revised text to t\his website, making it instantly available to his readers. He can document new features of java and include them in the latest version of the book on his site. The website for the book appears in FIGURE 1.1.

NOTE

The pictures throughout this book usually are taken from firefox   funning on Mac OS  X . the only reason for this use is that I’m writing this book on an apple power book. If you’re using a different operating system, don’t feel left out. As I noted earlier, the glory of the web is that you see the same l\information regardless of the platform you’re s\using. So, ignore the buttons and window borders and focus on what’s inside the window.

FIGURE 1.1 the website for thinking in java.

For some sites, the capability to update the site on the fly, a any moment, is precisely why the site exists. Figure 1.2 shows the home page for  Yahoo! News, an online news site that’s updated 24 hours a day to reflect up-to-the minute news as it happens. Because the site is up and available all the time, it has an immediacy that neither hard-copy newspapers nor most television news programs can match . visit Yahoo! News at http:// news .yahoo.com.