Technology and the virtual world are always evolving. There is always a new trend in the market when it comes to web development and designing. A web developer should constantly strive to find current and trendy ways to enhance the whole look of a website.
When it comes to web development technologies, the focus earlier was more on media capacities. Today however as per the new trends, it is about the latest stylish looks and usability. A designer or developer has a lot more responsibility in handling the transition period. Below are some of the web development technology trends that are extremely popular nowadays.
HTML
It shapes the base level of a website. It will not look very exciting but it would have all the basic functions and features. HTML comes in different ‘flavors’, namely XHTML, HTML3.2 and HTML5 among others. HTML is easy to use, has a loose syntax, widely used, free, and supported almost on every browser and is easy to learn and code even for new programmers. HTML has its drawbacks as well, such as it could not produce dynamic output by itself because it is a static language. The structuring of HTML documents is difficult to grasp and one has to keep up with the deprecated tags and making certain they are not used.
CSS
CSS means cascading style sheet; it is the central element in a website’s presentation or design. This technology controls the layout, color and design of the site. Combining design skills and good content when using HTML and CSS to build a valid, accessible site would provide a complete work in the sense of the presentation in the browser. What the web pages could possibly lack is functionality, efficiency and scalability. CSS helps in making layout and design changes of the website very easily. The file size is very small, so a website takes minimal loading time. The external CSS makes it easy for visitors who only want to see the website content. However, one notable drawback is that it works differently on various browsers.
PHP
PHP is a server-side technology that allows a website to scale from less than a dozen pages to hundreds. PHP is accessible, free and available with documentation in several languages. Moreover, it has a lot of support forums, groups and teams that support PHP. The platform however is out-of-the-box, thus it tends to execute much slower compared to assembly, C and other compiled languages. Since it is loosely typed, it allows room for unexpected behavior because of programmer error that a lot of languages might not allow.
JavaScript
It is used for client-side behavior, in short actions that are beyond the capability or scope of HTML or CSS. There seems to be a great amount of confusion when it comes to JavaScript among new developers and designers. JavaScript is fast since any code functions could be immediately run instead of contacting the server and waiting for an answer. Since it primary is related to elements on the client’s side, it minimizes the demand on a website server. The drawbacks of JavaScript includes security since the code executes on a user’s computer, it could be exploited for all malicious intents. Sometimes, it is differently interpreted by various browsers.
MySQL
This is the most advanced and undoubtedly the most complex of the web technologies and is recommended to be approached last. MySQL is free, reliable and fast open source. It has a suite of four open-source software packages that are popular and proven and well-supported that work together in running dynamic and interactive websites. However, MySQL does not efficiently support a very big database size and does not support COMMIT, ROLE and Stored procedures in the less than 5.0 versions.
Summary:
When it comes to web development, application development technologies rank high in priority among developers as well as users.
HTML is a web development technology that is currently in demand. It has all the basic functions and features despite the fact that it is does not appear very exciting. It has a loose syntax, easy to use, free and widely used. MySQL is the most advanced as well as the most complicated web development technology today. It has a suite of four open-source software packages that are proven and popular and well-supported that work in running interactive and dynamic sites.
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Photo credit: David J Morgan
