On the network highway of the world, if servers are service stations, then clients are travelers stopping at those service stations. A client can be a device or software that interacts with and works with a server. That's it. But a lot of times a client is specialized software to work with a particular server or service. Probably the most common client is a web browser. We use a web browser to send a request to a web server. That web server will take that request, it will process it, then it will send a response back to the browser, which will then render it and display it so that we can work with whatever content that we requested. So there's a relationship there. There's a client-server relationship or client-server communication. And it is a common pattern that's used with just about every client and server. Like for example, consider an email client. And it doesn't matter if it's a standalone client like Microsoft Outlook, or if it's a web

pattern that's used with just about every client and server. Like for example, consider an email client. And it doesn't matter if it's a standalone client like Microsoft Outlook, or if it's a web based client like Gmail. An email client is going to interact with an email server and fetch new email so that we can read that email. Again, it's that client-server communication. And interestingly, we use clients really without knowing that we are using clients because the vast majority of applications on our phones or our tablets are clients. They interact with a server or in many cases, many servers. They fetch information from those servers and then display them within the app. Of course, when we don't have a connection, then it's very apparent that an app is a client because it can't do its job. It can't interact with the service that it is supposed to. And a long time ago, clients were just dumb. They were dummy pieces of software that would just

is a client because it can't do its job. It can't interact with the service that it is supposed to. And a long time ago, clients were just dumb. They were dummy pieces of software that would just take the information from a server and display it, nothing else. But in today's day and age, clients do a lot of what we call client-side processing. I mean, even going back to a web browser, it will have to process and render images or styling from CSS, or it will have to do some animation. Clients are essential for interacting with our digital world. They are essentially the interface that we use to work with and access and manipulate the data that we need to work with. So every time you use your phone or your tablet or your computer and you do something online, your device or your software is acting as a client.

your device or your software is acting as a client.