This paper describes the approach to developing interfaces between WWW and statistical applications.
Two steps are involved according to the author. Set up the server and then create the application.
Server follows the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). In setting up the server, the security issue is emphasized.
Applications created for the WWW consist of HTML documents, CGI scripts, and optional multimedia resources. HTML (HyperText Makeup Language) provides text formatting information that govern the appearance of titles, headers, paragraphs, lists, and fill - out forms. It also acts as selectable hypertext links to other resources. CGI (Common Gateway Interface) provides a mean for the server to pass information to and from external programs. This allows the user to pass information to a program on the server's host machine and have the output of that program passed back to user and rendered appropriately by the client software. Multimedia resources provide rich and intuitive information via sounds, graphic image, and video files.
Users can access the created application via web browsers. Netscape and Mosaic were two of the most popular graphical browsers while Lynx was a popular text - only browser at that time according to the author.
Two examples are also given for demonstration purpose. The first involved the creation of a WWW based user interface to an existing SAS database. However, this website is no longer available now. The second involved the use of SAS programs to generate WWW documents. Unfortunately, there was no response from this website either.
The author discussed the possible advantages and disadvantages of the approach. Tabular forms and high resolution graphical output from many statistical package may find problem to display due to the limited hypertext formatting capability and limited in - line image formats supported by web browser respectively. When the application becomes popular, CPU drainage on the host machine might be considerably large. In spite of those limitations, the WWW holds great promise for widening the dissemination of database information and the creation of accessible and user - friendly interfaces to existing software.