Server hardware is pretty cheap these days. After all, if the server is down, customers will pick up the phone and call the 800 number and those human CSRs cost a lot more per transaction than server hardware would cost. Every customer who visits an airline or travel agency site and is rebuffed due to server outage is another customer who will be shy about shopping online in the future or one who turns into another window-shopper who relies on a real human travel agent to make actual purchases. Each of these scenarios can cause nasty results, from duplicate purchases to cancelled transactions. Transaction processing is a well-understood concept in computer science, but the Web presents new, somewhat chaotic user interface into a transaction system.
Some problems are inevitable.
Judicious use of Javascript or Java could make forms smarter. In the future, the improved forms capability of XML may help out as well. Copyright 2001 INT Media Group, Incorporated All Rights Reserved. All Rights Reserved.