As with any programming project, you must
find a fair balance between the time required to design the architecture and the time spent to
implement it. The three-tier architecture is best suited to projects with average complexity,
such as the TShirtShop web site.
CHAPTER 2 ?– LAYING OUT THE FOUNDATIONS 19
You also might be asking the opposite question, ???Why not use fewer tiers???? A two-tier
architecture, also called client-server architecture, can be appropriate for less complex projects.
In short, a two-tier architecture requires less time for planning and allows quicker development
in the beginning; however, it generates an application that??™s harder to maintain and extend in
the long run. Because we??™re expecting to have to extend the application in the future, the clientserver
architecture is not appropriate for our application, so it won??™t be discussed further in this
book.
Now that the general architecture is known, let??™s see what technologies and tools you will
use to implement it. We??™ll have a brief discussion of the technologies, and in Chapter 3, you??™ll
create the foundation of the presentation and data tiers by creating the first page of the site
and the back-end database. You??™ll start implementing real functionality in each of the three
tiers in Chapter 4 when you start creating the web site??™s product catalog.
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