A Dive Into WEB Development / Programming

Thought we won't spend much time on web programming , it is still a very essential aspect of programming especially on the internet and web.

Web development/ Programming 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.

Since the commercialization of the web, web development has been a growing industry. The growth of this industry is being pushed especially by businesses wishing to sell products and services to online customers.
For tools and platforms, the public can use many open source systems to aid in web development. A popular example, the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack is available for download online free of charge. This has kept the cost of learning web development to a minimum. Another contributing factor to the growth of the industry has been the rise of easy-to-use WYSIWYG web-development software, most prominently Adobe Dreamweaver, WebDev, and Microsoft Expression Studio. Using such software, virtually anyone can relatively quickly learn to develop a very basic web page. Knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or of programming languages is still required to use such software, but the basics can be learned and implemented quickly with the help of help files, technical books, internet tutorials, or face-to-face training.
An ever growing set of tools and technologies have helped developers build more dynamic and interactive websites. Web developers now help to deliver applications as web services which were traditionally only available as applications on a desk-based computer.
Instead of running executable code on a local computer, users can interact with online applications to create new content. This has created new methods in communication and allowed for many opportunities to decentralize information and media distribution. Users can 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 eBay have changed the way consumers find and purchase goods and services. Online retailers such as Amazon.com and Buy.com (among 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 Movable Type have created easily-implemented blog-environments for individual web sites. The popularity of open-source content management systems such as Joomla!, Drupal, XOOPS, and TYPO3 and enterprise content management systems such as Alfresco and eXo Platform have extended web development's impact at online interaction and communication.
Web development has also impacted personal networking and marketing. Websites are no longer simply tools for work or for commerce, but serve more broadly for communication and social networking. Websites such as Facebook and Twitter provide users with a platform to communicate and organizations with a more personal and interactive way to engage the public.

Web Development can be split into many areas and a typical and basic web development hierarchy might consist of:

• 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

Looking at these items from an "umbrella approach", client side coding such as XHTML is executed and stored on a local client (in a web browser) whereas server side code is not available to a client and is executed on a web server which generates the appropriate XHTML which is then sent to the client. The nature of client side coding allows one to alter the HTML on a local client and refresh the pages with updated content (locally), web designers must bear in mind the importance and relevance to security with their server side scripts. If a server side script accepts content from a locally modified client side script, the web development of that page is poorly sanitized with relation to security.