Web Environment
If you have done any web programming at all you know that
1. Clients (web browsers) make REQUESTS to web servers. These requests indicate a specific URL the server should activate. Requests are made using the HTTP protocol and the language of the WWW is HTML.
2. The Web Server processes this request and generates a RESPONSE which is sent back to the client.
3. By default this process is "stateless." The web server has no idea about who the client is and what they have done before the current request.
How "stateless" is turned into "statefull" and how the "Web Server processes" the request is what JSF is all about.