Web development

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Web development is a broad term that incorporates all areas of developing a web site for the World Wide Web. This can include graphical web design, actual coding of pages, backend programming, and web server configuration. However, among web professionals, web development usually refers only to the non-design aspects of building web sites, e.g. writing markup and coding.

For larger businesses and organizations, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people, while smaller organizations may only require a single webmaster.

Web development as an industry

Since the mid-1990's, web development has been one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. In 1995 there were less than 1,000 web development companies and in 2005 there are over 30,000 such companies.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} The web development industry is expected to grow over 20% by 2010. The growth of this industry is being pushed by large businesses wishing to sell products and services to their customers and to automate business workflow.

In addition, cost of web site development and hosting has dropped dramatically during this time. Instead of costing tens of thousands of dollars, as was the case only five or six years ago, you can now develop a simple website with only a few hundred dollars.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} As far as web development tools and platforms are concerned, there are many systems available to the public free of charge to aid in development. A popular example is the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), which is usually distributed free of charge. This fact alone has manifested into many people around the globe setting up new websites daily and thus contributing to increase in web development popularity. Another contributing factor has been the rise of easy to use WYSIWYG web development software, most prominently Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver. Using such software, virtually anyone can develop a webpage in a matter of minutes. Knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML), or other programming languages is not required.

The next generation of web development tools leverages the strong growth in LAMP and Microsoft .NET technologies to provide the web as an application platform. Web developers now assist in delivering applications as web services which were traditionally only available as local applications. So instead of running executable code on a local computer, users are interacting with online applications to create new content modalities. This has created new paradigms in communication and created many opportunities for decentralized information and media distribution. Users are now able to interact with applications from many locations, instead of being tied to a specific workstation for their application environment.

Examples of dramatic transformation in communication and commerce led by web development include e-commerce. Online auction sites such as E-bay have changed the way consumers consume and purchase goods and services. Online resellers such as Amazon.com and Buy.com (among many, many others) have transformed the shopping and bargain hunting experience for many consumers. Another good example of transformative communication led by web development is the blog. Web applications such as WordPress and b2evolution have created easily implemented blog environments for individual websites. Also, collaborative web spaces and online communities such as MySpace and open source content systems such as Xoops, Joomla, and Drupal have extended web development into new modes of interaction and communication.

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Web development

Web development as an industry

See also

External links