State of the art

It's been a while since my last post. Those past few weeks I was busy with multiple school related projects, exams and so on, but at the same time I was working on my final project too.

So, where am I now?

At the suggestion of my mentors I switched the Desktop Web Application from Java Servlets and JSP to Google Web Toolkit(GWT).

Why?

Because a Web application developed with servlets is working as a fat client. In a fat client system, a high degree of processing occurs on the client or desktop system, while relatively little is done on the server.

With GWT is totally different, because it is working as thin client, this is a model of computing whereby almost all the processing is done at the server end. This enables low powered computers to be used at the front end.

There are a lot of other pros and cons for each approach, though in the last decade most of the industry has moved largely in favor of thin client systems because thin client systems can support on-demand and other Internet-based applications with relatively little administrative or technical support.

To move on, a few days ago I've added a new feature to my API, delta updates. That means, now I am not exchanging the whole database between server and mobile device just data that has been modified since his last synchronization.

Also exchanging of c2dm messages are done, so when the client on the desktop web app is updating the data, a poke is sent to the android device, to inform that he has to synchronize his database.

With this features I have removed another two restrictions from the beginning:

1. Database from the server side (cloud) will be accessible only from Android devices.
2. Changes on the client side will result with an update of the entire database on the cloud.

Now, I have to continue with testing the API/Desktop Web Application, fix bugs if it is necessary and start to write the theoretical part.