How does bandwidth dictate your programming practices? When you’re developing for an intranet, an extranet, or the public Internet, you have different sized pipes: the 2M-byte video file works fine on your local server but it’s useless to anyone dialing in at 28.8, unless he or she has a whole lot of free time. Common sense dictates what’s too much, although a look at some sites on the Web, particularly those that claim to provide entertainment, suggest that common sense is not a commodity in great supply.
Yet those three environments are beginning to bear more and more of a relationship to one another. “The boundaries between Internet, intranet, and extranet applications have become blurred,” says Preston Roper, director of electronic connectivity for Synopsys, a company that develops, markets, and supports high-level design automation solutions for designers of integrated circuits and electronic system s, which include computer and telecommunications systems and electronic devices.
In a paper delivered to Netscape customers, Roper writes, “Working together, these three dimensions of networking technology-intranets, extranets, and the Internet-create a synergy that can help companies increase productivity and align themselves more closely with the needs of their customers and business
partners.”
Indeed, Roper’s comments are echoed by the Webmasters and programmers to whom we spoke, all feeding large, multipurpose sites. An informal survey of a dozen of them suggests you answer the following questions when deciding what to deploy
where .
Are you making the best use of bandwidth? Many times the information in a large multimedia file can be delivered in plain text at a fraction of the size. Do you control the browser? Don’t deploy ActiveX controls, for example, unless you are certain that all those viewing a page can take advantage of such components .
Are your applications secure? JavaScript code appears directly on an HTML page and obscuring labels in Java bytecode can be done with minimal fuss. Assume
that any application on a public page can be decoded by someone with the inclination and the time.
Have you differentiated the internal and external experience? Clients, employees, and potential customers all need to be addressed in specific ways. Don’t confuse them. How does your development differ for intranets, extranets, and the Internet? We want to know.
