Data Access
For small-scale data access applications, JavaScript can be used as a quick and simple alternative to CGI. Rather than make a request to the server each time, data (complete with pictures) can be embedded into the body of an HTML document, and accessed via a scripted form, removing the need to communicate with the server and vastly speeding up the process.
To illustrate this, the following example shows the product database of a fictitious leisure enterprise, Rollin' Joe's Marble Emporium. You can use the form to browse through Joe's range of fine marbles.
Rollin' Joe's Marble Picker
Because the data is embedded into the HTML document, this technique is only effective when there is a relatively small amount of information to transfer, or the increase in speed due to the client-side processing will be outweighed by the time it takes to download the page. Large databases are best kept on the web server, using a CGI script to access them. It will also be much easier to maintain and update a large database in this way.