Web Development: A Chronicle

Web Development or website development is a broad term that engulfs all the

activities involved in developing a website for the World Wide Web (Internet) or a

private network (Intranet). It can range from a simple, static web page to highly

complicated web-based applications, electronic businesses, and social network

services. It can encompass web engineering, web design, web content

development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web

server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. Web

professionals, however, have always stressed web development to be associated

with writing markup and coding. With the development of Content Management

Systems, web development in many circles simply means creation of a CMS.

With the commercialization of the web, web development companies and web

development as a discipline has grown by leaps and bounds. It has almost made

mandatory for businesses to use websites to sell products and services to their

customers.

The open source model has given a big boost to web development. Encouraging

open collaboration, it has made source code, documentations, and blueprints

freely accessible to the public.

The easy-to-use WYSIWYG web development software such as Adobe

Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Studio have also led to the immense growth of

web development.

A popular and pervasive growth of tools and technologies now facilitates building

cutting-edge dynamic and interactive websites. The rise of web services and cloud

computing allows users to interact with applications from any location. Gone are

the days when applications were available only on a desk based computer tying

users to a specific workstation.

Web development has dramatically transformed the communication and commerce

industries. E-commerce allows consumers to find, bargain, and purchase goods

and services from online e-commerce stores. Online interaction and

communication has also been positively impacted with web development

facilitating open source content management systems and enterprise content

management systems and blogging platforms.

Personal networking and marketing have also been transformed by web

development, serving as a communication and social networking platform.

Websites like Facebook and Twitter facilitate users to communicate, and

organizations to promote their business in an interactive and engaging way.

How it all started?

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee defined a concept for a computer platform that would

facilitate collaboration between researchers based in different parts of the world.

This led to the development of HTML in 1990 which became the fundamental

building block of the World Wide Web. The concept of Internet by then was not a

new phenomenon since the first WAN was established in 1965 and the first LAN in

1983. Twisted-pair, coaxial, and fiber optic cable were also being developed for

the telecommunication industry for many decades. When all these technologies

converged with Berners-Lee model, the modern web was born with commercial

web pages up and running by the mid-1990s.

The Intermediate Years

Improvements in hardware led to broader networks and greater bandwidth. This

led developers to incorporate multimedia into the web presentation. Cascading

Style Sheets facilitated new ways to organize and display content. Flash video led

to new ways of web art and animation, and video streaming changed the very

concept of entertainment.

Latest Trends

Technology has changed rapidly in the recent years. With new frameworks, tools

and technologies it has become vital for web developers to stay up on their toes

for developing powerful applications and constantly enhancing the UX.

Artificial Intelligence is being used to create websites and apps. This technology

allows developers to build software that can think and act as a human without

actual human interaction.

Virtual Reality is another technology that will find a lot of space in the coming

years. It has already swept the gaming industry and will continue to spread onto

other domains of web development as well.

Internet of Things (IoT) connect non-internet-connected objects to send and

receive data. These objects can be household appliances like toasters, or sensors

on motors, and they will have a great impact on web development.

A special mention required here is that of the development of mobile operating

system that has revolutionized web development like never. With mobile OS, the

web page has gradually changed its shape to accommodate several contexts. The

mobile app is on its way to displace the web page, who knows! But one thing is

certain, the app on mobile platform has derived its basic properties from web

development itself.

Rigel Networks provides the best in class web development services. With hands-

on experience and expertise, our team of web developers have a tradition of

delivering cutting-edge solutions and services to our clients. You can get in touch

with us to hire web developers and get the state-of-the-art web solutions.