Summary

This chapter and the example mechanism only demonstrate state management. The example assigns a unique identifier to each client and then identifies a returning client. For most developers, this is incomplete in regards to fulfilling the needs of a Web application. This is because most developers require session management to really get anything accomplished. With a solid method of maintaining state established, however, session management simply requires that you store some client data and retrieve it for future visits.

The following chapter builds on the information found here and in the previous chapter on cookies by demonstrating how to manage client data to allow for intelligent session management. It also covers ideas such as user authentication, which can be used to associate a particular user with a particular client (for example, the user chris is using the client identified as 12345). The example given in this chapter is augmented to provide more functionality by leveraging the benefits of a client data store.