essential web development questions

• What is CORS? How does it work?

CORS defines a way in which a browser and server can interact to determine whether or not it is safe to allow the cross-origin request.^[3] It allows for more freedom and functionality than purely same-origin requests, but is more secure than simply allowing all cross-origin requests. It is a recommended standard of the 

The Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) mechanism gives web servers cross-domain access controls, which enable secure cross-domain data transfers. Modern browsers use CORS in an API container - such as XMLHttpRequest or Fetch - to mitigate risks of cross-origin HTTP requests.

This will lead to a simple exchange between the client and the server, using CORS headers to handle the privileges:

The Cross-Origin Resource Sharing standard works by adding new HTTP headers that allow servers to describe the set of origins that are permitted to read that information using a web browser.  Additionally, for HTTP request methods that can cause side-effects on user data (in particular, for HTTP methods other than GET, or for POST usage with certain MIME types), the specification mandates that browsers "preflight" the request, soliciting supported methods from the server with an HTTP OPTIONS request method, and then, upon "approval" from the server, sending the actual request with the actual HTTP request method. Servers can also notify clients whether "credentials" (including Cookies and HTTP Authentication data) should be sent with requests.

• WHAT IS REST , RESTFULL  AND DIFFERENT HTTP METHODS USED IN RESTFULL WEB SERVICES 

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What is REST ?

REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer. REST is web standards based architecture and uses HTTP Protocol for data communication. It revolves around resource where every component is a resource and a resource is accessed by a common interface using HTTP standard methods. REST was first introduced by Roy Fielding in 2000.

In REST architecture, a REST Server simply provides access to resources and REST client accesses and presents the resources. Here each resource is identified by URIs/ global IDs. REST uses various representations to represent a resource like text, JSON and XML. Now a days JSON is the most popular format being used in web services.

A web service is a collection of open protocols and standards used for exchanging data between applications or systems. Software applications written in various programming languages and running on various platforms can use web services to exchange data over computer networks like the Internet in a manner similar to inter-process communication on a single computer. This interoperability (e.g., between Java and Python, or Windows and Linux applications) is due to the use of open standards.

Web services based on REST Architecture are known as RESTful web services. These web services use HTTP methods to implement the concept of REST architecture. A RESTful web service usually defines a URI, Uniform Resource Identifier a service, provides resource representation such as JSON and set of HTTP Methods.

The purpose of each of the HTTP request types when used with a RESTful web service is as follows:

1. GET: Retrieves data from the server (should only retrieve data and should have no other effect).
2. POST: Sends data to the server for a new entity. It is often used when uploading a file or submitting a completed web form.
3. PUT: Similar to POST, but used to replace an existing entity.
4. PATCH: Similar to PUT, but used to update only certain fields within an existing entity.
5. DELETE: Removes data from the server.
6. TRACE: Provides a means to test what a machine along the network path receives when a request is made. As such, it simply returns what was sent.
7. OPTIONS: Allows a client to request information about the request methods supported by a service. The relevant response header is Allow and it simply lists the supported methods. (It can also be used to request information about the request methods supported for the server where the service resides by using a * wildcard in the URI.)
8. HEAD: Same as the GET method for a resource, but returns only the response headers (i.e., with no entity-body).
9. CONNECT: Primarily used to establish a network connection to a resource (usually via some proxy that can be requested to forward an HTTP request as TCP and maintain the connection). Once established, the response sends a 200 status code and a “Connection Established” message.

What is Long polling, how does it work, and why would you use it? Considering server and client resources, what is the main drawback of using long polling? Which HTML5 feature is the best alternative to long polling?

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The HTTP protocol is based on a request/response pattern, which means that the server cannot push any data to the client (i.e., the server can only provide data to the client in response to a client request). Long polling is a web application development pattern used to emulate pushing data from server to client. When the long polling pattern is used, the client submits a request to the server and the connection then remains active until the server is ready to send data to the client. The connection is closed only after data is sent back to the client or connection timeout occurs. The client then creates a new request when the connection is closed, thus restarting the loop.

There are two important drawbacks that need to be considered when using long polling:

1. Long polling requests are not different from any other HTTP request and web servers handle them the same way. This means that every long poll connection will reserve server resources, potentially maxing out the number of connections the server can handle. This can lead to HTTP connection timeouts.
2. Each web browser will limit the maximum number of connections web application can make. This means that your application load time and performance may be degraded.

In HTML5, a useful alternative to long polling is using a WebSocket. A WebSocket is a protocol providing full-duplex communications channels over a single TCP connection. The WebSocket protocol makes possible more interaction between a browser and a web site, facilitating live content and eliminates the need for the long polling paradigm.

Another potential answer could be Server-sent DOM Events. Which is method of continuously sending data from a server to the browser, rather than repeatedly requesting it. However, this HTML5 feature is not supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer, thus making it less attractive solution.

Explain the difference between stateless and stateful protocols. Which type of protocol is HTTP? Explain your answer.

A stateless communications protocol treats each request as an independent transaction. It therefore does not require the server to retain any session, identity, or status information spanning multiple requests from the same source. Similarly, the requestor can not rely on any such information being retained by the responder.

In contrast, a stateful communications protocol is one in which the responder maintains “state” information (session data, identity, status, etc.) across multiple requests from the same source.

HTTP is a stateless protocol. HTTP does not require server to retain information or status about each user for the duration of multiple requests.

Some web servers implement states using different methods (using cookies, custom headers, hidden form fields etc.). However, in the very core of every web application everything relies on HTTP which is still a stateless protocol that is based on simple request/response paradigm.

Describe the key advantages of HTTP/2 as compared with HTTP 1.1.

HTTP/2 provides decreased latency to improve page load speed by supporting:

• Data compression of HTTP headers
• Server push technologies
• Loading of page elements in parallel over a single TCP connection
• Prioritization of requests

An important operational benefit of HTTP/2 is that it avoids the head-of-line blocking problem in HTTP 1.

What is a “MIME type”, what does it consist of, and what is it used for? Provide an example.

MIME is an acronym for Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions. It is used as a standard way of classifying file types over the Internet.

Web servers and browsers have a defined list of MIME types, which facilitates transfer of files of a known type, irrespective of operating system or browser.

A MIME type actually has two parts: a type and a subtype that are separated by a slash (/). For example, the MIME type for Microsoft Word files is application/msword (i.e., type is application and the subtype is msword).

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