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Web Development

Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which web development commonly refers, may include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. Among web professionals, "web development" usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building web sites: writing markup and coding.

For larger organizations and businesses, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people (web developers). Smaller organizations may only require a single permanent or contracting webmaster, or secondary assignment to related job positions such as a graphic designer and/or information systems technician. Web development may be a collaborative effort between departments rather than the domain of a designated department.

Typical areas
Web Development can be split into many areas and a typical and basic web development hierarchy might consist of:
  • Client side coding
  • Ajax Asynchronous JavaScript provides new methods of using JavaScript, and other languages to improve the user experience.
  • Flash Adobe Flash Player is a ubiquitous browser plugin ready for RIAs. Flex 2 is also deployed to the Flash Player (version 9+).
  • JavaScript JavaScript is a ubiquitous client side platform for creating and delivering rich web applications that can also run across a wide variety of devices. It is a dialect of the scripting language ECMAScript.
  • jQuery Cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify and speed up the client-side scripting of HTML.
  • Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft's browser plugin that enables animation, vector graphics and high-definition video playback, programmed using XAML and .NET programming languages.
  • HTML5 and CSS3 Latest HTML proposed standard combined with the latest proposed standard for CSS natively supports much of the client-side functionality provided by other frameworks such as Flash and Silverlight.

Server side coding
  • ASP (Microsoft proprietary)
  • ActiveVFP (open source)
  • CSP, Server-Side ANSI C
  • ColdFusion (Adobe proprietary, formerly Macromedia, formerly Allaire)
  • CGI
  • Erlang, with Linux, Yaws, Mnesia, Erlang (LYME) solution stack
  • Groovy (programming language) Grails (framework)
  • Java, e.g. Java EE or WebObjects
  • Lotus Domino
  • Node.js
  • Perl, e.g. Catalyst, Dancer or Mojolicious (all open source)
  • PHP (open source)
  • Python, e.g. Django (web framework) (open source)
  • Real Studio Web Edition
  • Ruby, e.g. Ruby on Rails (open source)
  • Smalltalk e.g. Seaside, AIDA/Web
  • SSJS Server-Side JavaScript, e.g. Aptana Jaxer, Mozilla Rhino
  • WebDNA (WSC proprietary)
  • Websphere (IBM proprietary)
  • .NET and .NET MVC Frameworks (Microsoft proprietary)

The World Wide Web has become a major delivery platform for web development a variety of complex and sophisticated enterprise applications in several domains. In addition to their inherent multifaceted functionality, these web applications exhibit complex behavior and place some unique demands on their usability, performance, security and ability to grow and evolve. However, a vast majority of these applications continue to be developed in an ad-hoc way, contributing to problems of usability, maintainability, quality and reliability.(1)(2) While web development can benefit from established practices from other related disciplines, it has certain distinguishing characteristics that demand special considerations. In recent years of web development there have been some developments towards addressing these problems and requirements. As an emerging discipline, web engineering actively promotes systematic, disciplined and quantifiable approaches towards successful development of high-quality, ubiquitously usable web-based systems and applications.(3)(4) In particular, web engineering focuses on the methodologies, techniques and tools that are the foundation of web application development and which support their design, development, evolution, and evaluation. Web application development has certain characteristics that make it different from traditional software, information system, or computer application development.
Web engineering is multidisciplinary and encompasses contributions from diverse areas: systems analysis and design, software engineering, hypermedia/hypertext engineering, requirements engineering, human-computer interaction, user interface, information engineering, information indexing and retrieval, testing, modelling and simulation, project management, and graphic design and presentation. Web engineering is neither a clone, nor a subset of software engineering, although both involve programming and software development. While web engineering uses software engineering principles, web development encompasses new approaches, methodologies, tools, techniques, and guidelines to meet the unique requirements for web-based applications.

Client side + server side
  • Google Web Toolkit provides tools to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java.
  • Dart provides tools to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications as well as supporting server-side code in Dart (programming language).
  • Opa is a high-level language in which both the client and the server parts are implemented. The compiler then decides which parts run on the client (and are translated automatically to JavaScript) and which parts run on the server. The developer can tune those decisions with simple directives. (open source)
  • Pyjamas is a tool and framework for developing Ajax applications and Rich Internet Applications in python.
  • Tersus is a platform for the development of rich web applications by visually defining user interface, client side behavior and server side processing. (open source)
  • However languages like Ruby and Python are often paired with database servers other than MySQL (the M in LAMP). Below are example of other databases currently in wide use on the web. For instance some developers prefer a LAPR(Linux/Apache/PostgreSQL/Ruby on Rails) setup for development.

Database technology
  • FileMaker
  • Apache Derby
  • DB2 (IBM proprietary)
  • Firebird
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • MySQL
  • Oracle
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQLite
  • Sybase
  • WebDNA
  • Redis
  • MongoDB
  • CouchDB

Practical web development
Basic

In practice, many web developers will have basic interdisciplinary skills / roles, including:
  • Graphic design / web design
  • Information architecture and copywriting/copyediting with web usability, accessibility and search engine optimization in mind

Advanced
  • Some more advanced web developers will also have these interdisciplinary skills / roles:
  • GUI (Graphic User Interface) design
  • Audio, Video and Animation processing & encoding (for web usage)
  • Flash Capabilities (animation, audio, video, scripting)
  • Web content management system Deployment and/or Content management infrastructure design, development and integration
  • Web applications development, integration and deployment
  • Web server stress testing (how much traffic can a web server running a specific application endure before collapsing)
  • Web site security analysis & testing
  • Web site code optimization (which is an important aspect of search engine optimization)
  • Project management, QA and other aspects common to IT development