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The difference between a website and web app and web service

Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:50 am
by recci
Could someone explain to me using suitable examples the differences between Web applications, web services and web sites?
Iv got a ruff idea about this but I want to make sure I'm clear on this.

cheers

Re: The difference between a website and web app and web service

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:41 pm
by sergio-pro
Hi

There are great definitions of these things in wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service

As for me these terms are about the same thing.
It is called a website from an internet user's perspective.
The same (more or less :)) from develpers point of view is a Web application
And webservice (in its technical meaning) is a web application to be used by another application.

The simpliest webservice example can be such script prices.php:

Code: Select all

 
<?
echo "apple|2.0;banana|3.5;";
?>
 
Another application can call prices.php script via internet and parse the results. Traditional web services (ie SOAP) use similar approach, with standardized way of serializing messages.

Also a website, providing some kind of service, is a web service - in non-technical meaning. For example: google provides a number of services (gmail, google search etc), and it provides it through the web and for the web - so they are also web services.