Thin Clients As Programs
The notion of a thin client extends directly to any client–server architecture: in which case, a thin client application is simply one which relies on its server to process most or all of its business logic. This idiom is relatively common for computer security reasons: a client obviously cannot be trusted with the logic that determines how trustworthy they are; an adversary would simply skip the logic and say "I'm as trustworthy as possible!"
However, in web development in particular, client applications are becoming fatter. This is due to the adoption of heavily client-side technologies like Ajax and Flash, which are themselves strongly driven by the highly interactive nature of Web 2.0 applications.
A renewed interest in virtual private servers, with many virtualization programs coming to a ripe stage, means that servers on the web today may handle many different client businesses. This can be thought of as having a thin-client "virtual server" which depends on the actual host in which it runs to do all of its computation for it. The end result, at least, is the same: providing of the computing service for many clients.
Read more about this topic: Thin Client
Famous quotes containing the words thin, clients and/or programs:
“Like those before it, this decade takes on the marketable subtleties of a private phenomenon: parenthood. Mothers are being teased out of the home and into the agora for a public trial. Are we doing it right? Do we have the right touch? The right toys? The right lights? Is our child going to grow up tall, thin and bright? Something private, and precious, has become public, vulgarized—and scored by impersonal judges.”
—Sonia Taitz (20th century)
“...a lot of my people are models. I like that for them. I admire models, so I think that’s right for my people. ...I love it when I have an important [client]. And the pictures and awards. One of my clients has these television awards—a beautiful statue of a woman. I think it’s an Emmy. People would be lucky to get one. She has two. I think that’s great.”
—Elaine Strong (b. 1934)
“Will TV kill the theater? If the programs I have seen, save for “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” the ball games and the fights, are any criterion, the theater need not wake up in a cold sweat.”
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)