Various Categories of web document

Static Document:

Static document are nothing but just a static content that reside in the server, and a copy of the static content is sent to client browser upon the request by the client. The content of static document is determined when they are created. The copy sent by the server is destined to be interpreted by the browser not by humans. The client can have the privilege of seeing the data, and he does not hold any privilege for modifying content, unless he has access to the document located at the server.

Dynamic Pages:

Dynamic page does not exist in a predefined format; instead they are created by a web server, when a client requests the server through the browser. The server takes some input from the client and then creates an output according to the client request. Again the output from the server is not destined to be interpreted by humans. They are destined to be interpreted by your web browser. The output may vary from user to user, depending upon the input. Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is used for creating and handling dynamic web documents. CGI is not a programming language. It is just a set of rules. Using those set of rules a programmer may write a dynamic web page using the traditional C language, C++, Bourne Shell, Tcl or PERL.

Active document:

For most of the applications we need a program to be running at the client side, for interacting with users. One common example could be, JAVA APPLET, FLASH content, which is also a dynamic content. An active content is stored in the form of binary code in the server side. When ever a client request an active content, it is transferred in the binary form, even we can store the active content, so that we need not request the same data, once again. Since the active content is transferred in the compressed form, both the transmission time and bandwidth are reduced.