# Working With Application-Level Data

The real strength of WDDX is clear if the client and server are seen as a unified platform for applications. This is a subtle, but profound, distinction from the traditional view of an application where services are partitioned between the client and server.

In client-server, a client might query a database and get a recordset that can be browsed, updated and returned to the server without requiring a persistent connection. In this scenario, data is highly-structured and that structure is baked into the client side of the application ahead of time.

While this style of databinding relies on the presence of data sources that expose well-structured data of known types, WDDX is designed to transport application-level data structures to facilitate seamless computing between the client and the server side of a web application. Application-level data structures generally differ from data exposed via traditional data sources, e.g., databases. They are generally more complex and ad hoc, with dynamic structure. WDDX allows developers to work with this data without the overhead of setting up a datasource for every type of data needed. Therefore, it integrates nicely with and complements other approaches that rely on existing data sources.