In current times, the Internet plays a huge role in both everyday life and business. Moreover, a constantly growing number of smartphones makes us browse websites even more often. No wonder that there is a huge demand for creating websites and web applications. The whole process involves a huge assortment of rules and technologies that every web developer should know about. Such a multitude of frameworks and approaches does not make the choice easier. What’s important, you need to choose the right technology exactly to the character of the website or application you will be building. Let’s delve into the matter of creating and developing websites to find out about any dependencies and peculiarities, and find the best solution for every kind of project.
What is Web Development?
Creating websites can include building simple, single, static pages, as well as complex web applications, social networks, marketplaces etc. However, it is not only the appearance and operation on the user side, i.e. the front-end, but also everything on the server-side, back-end or database. What the web application will consist of, what technologies or frameworks will be used depends mainly on its type. Besides, website builders can use content management systems (CMS) to make content changes easier and accessible with basic technical skills. Since the popularization of the Internet, network development is a rapidly growing industry of great importance. Almost every business goes to the internet. Therefore, the demand for web developers is enormous. Increasingly, entire teams are on the project as it is reaching a colossal scale. Now, let’s discuss a little more precisely what web applications consist of:
Client-Side
Client-side, or front-end web development, deals with the processing of data into a graphical interface, most often using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, so that users can view and interact with these data. When it comes to choosing a front-end technology, the developer must remember about the availability, efficiency and speed of development. A very important factor is also the appropriate display of the user interface and all its content on any mobile device, hence the great popularity of responsive web design.
Server-Side
The back-end is not visible to the user but is responsible for the operation of the entire website. This is what the back-end developer specializes in – creating a kind of the website engine and taking care of the databases and the server, which are also part of the server-side of the web. Therefore, to develop this part, they need various technologies that will not only be used to write just the code, but also handle the databases and website communication with them, and ensure safe operation of the web application.
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails, commonly called RoR or simply Rails is a free and open-source server-side framework for rapid web applications development. Its appearance in 2005 greatly influenced other web frameworks, and to this day, its popularity seems to grow. RoR was written in Ruby using the Model-View-Controller architecture providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pages. It is based on several main assumptions, such as the speed, ease and pleasure of writing code or the DRY – Don’t Repeat Yourself rule, which consists in avoiding repeating the same work in different places. It also represents the Convention Over Configuration approach, which consists of minimizing the necessary configuration by replacing it with ready-made default, recommended patterns. RoR assumes the possibility of using plugins that will quickly expand applications with various functions, such as logging in or sending pictures. Ruby on Rails has had a huge impact on other web frameworks through its innovative features such as smooth database table creation, migrations and views scaffolding to enable rapid application development, and many frameworks in other languages borrow its patterns.
React
React.js is an open-source JavaScript library for creating a user interface. It is distinguished by the virtual DOM (Document Object Model), which is a way of representing complex XML and HTML documents. React stores the application’s entire DOM in memory, after a state change, looks for differences between the virtual and real DOMs, and updates the changes. The use of JSX is also characteristic of React. This is a JavaScript wrapper that adds the ability to insert HTML or React components directly into your code, instead of a string. React has a relatively low entry threshold. Once you know JavaScript, you can quickly learn and use it in your projects. Moreover, the high level of involvement of React users contributes to the better availability of solutions to common problems and support. The maturity and stability of the technology, which is constantly backed by Facebook, make React.js an attractive, trusted choice. React is primarily a tool for building UI components and entire user interfaces for various platforms. Although React.js is a front-end technology, it can also be rendered on the server and used in desktop applications. This framework is very flexible. Combining it with other tools allows you to use it as a structure that will lay the foundation for a complex application. Facebook created React.js primarily for its purposes and products to stop relying on HTML5, but many new applications are being built with it, too.
Node.js
Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript solution that executes JavaScript code outside of the web browser. Node.js allows you to use JavaScript to write command-line tools and to execute server-side scripting to create dynamic web page content before the page is sent to the user’s web browser. Node.js contributed to the creation of the “JavaScript Everywhere” paradigm that unifies web application development around one programming language, rather than different languages for server and client-side scripting. It has an event-driven architecture that can support asynchronous input/output operations. This was to optimize bandwidth and scalability in web applications with multiple I/O as well as real-time web applications. Node.js brings event-driven programming to web servers, enabling the development of fast web servers in JavaScript. Developers can build scalable servers without the use of threads by using a simplified event-driven programming model, where callbacks signal the end of a task. It is perfect for creating a lightweight but highly efficient website. It provides scalability and speed of operation.
Python
Python, despite its long presence in the software development industry, remains a relevant framework. It is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Development in Python emphasizes code readability. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach are designed to help developers write clear, logical code for small and large projects. One of the goals of Python’s creators was keeping it fun to use. This is reflected in the language’s name, which is a tribute to the British comedy group Monty Python. Python supports many programming paradigms, including structured programming, especially procedural, object-oriented, and functional. Rather than having all of its functionality built into its core, Python was designed to be highly extensible. Its universality makes it so easy, that even beginners can quite surely understand what’s in the code. As it is interpreted just like PHP or JavaScript, it is faster to write code with it. According to the Stack Overflow surveys, Python is still one of the most popular languages among developers.
Read also: Rails vs Django – differences and which one to choose?
Angular
Angular is a TypeScript-based, open-source framework for developing web and single-page applications. Initially, it was supposed to be version 2 of the popular AngularJS framework, but eventually, it was released as a separate unit due to the backward incompatibility and simple update path of the application. One of the main features of Angular 2 was the ability to develop applications for multiple platforms: web, mobile, and desktop, while AngularJS does not support mobile devices by design. Besides, Angular has no concept of scope or controllers and uses a component hierarchy instead. It is also distinguished by modularity, and many basic functions have been transferred to modules. Unlike React, Angular has a bi-directional data binding feature. It was built with the Model-View-Controller concept in mind, so it can update model changes to the view and vice versa. Angular’s use of bi-directional data binding increases the performance of browser-based applications by updating content quickly and dynamically. It also works for enterprise applications and dynamic web applications as it has a wide range of tools for SPA development.
PHP
PHP was created in 1994, so like Python, it has been in the industry for a long time, and therefore quite popular. It is a general-purpose scripting language especially suited for web development. PHP originally meant Personal Home Page, but now stands for recursive PHP initialism: Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP code is usually processed on a web server by a PHP interpreter implemented as a module, daemon (a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user), or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable. On the webserver, the result of interpreted and executed PHP code, which can be any data type, constitutes all or part of the HTTP response. Additionally, PHP can be used for many development tasks outside of the network context, such as standalone graphics applications. Any PHP code can also be interpreted and executed through the command-line interface (CLI). The PHP language evolved without a written, formal specification until 2014. Since then, work has been underway to create a formal PHP specification.
Read also: PHP vs Ruby on Rails – What’s the Difference? Which One is Better?
Rising stars
In addition to the most sought-after technologies, there are also a few that are becoming increasingly relevant. Some of them have been in existence for several years, but now they are starting to gain more popularity.
Laravel
Laravel is a free, open-source PHP web framework designed to create web applications according to the model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern and based on Symfony. Some of the Laravel features are different ways of accessing relational databases, tools to facilitate application implementation and maintenance, a modular packaging system with a dedicated dependency manager and orientation towards syntactic sugar. Syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express.
Meteor
Meteor, or MeteorJS, is a free and open-source isomorphic JavaScript web platform, written with Node.js. Meteor allows for rapid prototyping and cross-platform code creation. It integrates with MongoDB and uses the distributed data protocol and the publish and subscribe pattern to automatically propagate data changes to clients without the developer writing any synchronization code. On the client, Meteor can be used with any popular JS, Vue, React, or Angular framework.
Gatsby
Gatsby is a new, free, open-source website and application development platform. It is based on React and works as a static generator of progressive web applications. Gatsby only loads critical HTML, CSS, data, and JavaScript to keep a website loading as fast as possible. Once loaded, Gatsby preloads resources for other pages, making pages based on it extremely quick.
Summary
Both the number and level of advancement of the available web technologies, as well as the observed trends indicate that web development is desirable. Thanks to increasing digitization, improvement is getting bigger. If you are also thinking about developing your website or web application, and want to trust experienced specialists, check out our Web App Development Services.
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December 2, 2020
