Web application development - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Web application development is the process and practice of developing web application

Web application

A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...

Risk

Just as with a traditional desktop application, web applications have varying levels of risk. A personal home page is much less risky than, for example, a stock trading web site. For some projects security

Computer security

Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to...

, software bug

Software bug

A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...

s, etc. are major issues. If time to market, or technical complexity is a concern, documentation

Software documentation

Software documentation or source code documentation is written text that accompanies computer software. It either explains how it operates or how to use it, and may mean different things to people in different roles....

, test plan

Test plan

A test plan is a document detailing a systematic approach to testing a system such as a machine or software. The plan typically contains a detailed understanding of what the eventual workflow will be.-Test plans:...

ning, change control

Change Control

Change control within Quality management systems and Information Technology systems is a formal process used to ensure that changes to a product or system are introduced in a controlled and coordinated manner...

, requirements analysis

Requirements analysis

Requirements analysis in systems engineering and software engineering, encompasses those tasks that go into determining the needs or conditions to meet for a new or altered product, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders, such as beneficiaries or users...

, architectural description

Software architecture

The software architecture of a system is the set of structures needed to reason about the system, which comprise software elements, relations among them, and properties of both...

and formal design and construction practices can mitigate risk.

Technologies

Ajax
Ajax (programming)
Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
ASP
Active Server Pages
Active Server Pages , also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically-generated Web pages. Initially released as an add-on to Internet Information Services via the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack Active Server Pages (ASP), also known as Classic...
ASP.NET
ASP.NET
ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
ColdFusion
ColdFusion
In computing, ColdFusion is the name of a commercial rapid application development platform invented by Jeremy and JJ Allaire in 1995. ColdFusion was originally designed to make it easier to connect simple HTML pages to a database, by version 2 it had...
Java EE
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE is widely used platform for server programming in the Java programming language. The Java platform differs from the Java Standard Edition Platform in that it adds libraries which provide functionality to deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, multi-tier...
JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
Ruby
Ruby (programming language)
Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...

, including Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails, often shortened to Rails or RoR, is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language.-History:...
CGI
Common Gateway Interface
The Common Gateway Interface is a standard method for web servers software to delegate the generation of web pages to executable files...
Django
Wt – Web toolkit, a Qt-ish C++ Web Toolkit Library Lets You Write Scripting-Independent Web Apps
WebObjects
WebObjects
WebObjects was a Java web application server from Apple Inc., and a web application framework that ran on the server. It was available at no additional cost. Its hallmark features were its object-orientation, database connectivity, and prototyping tools...

Lifecycle Model

Time to market

In commerce, time to market is the length of time it takes from a product being conceived until its being available for sale. TTM is important in industries where products are outmoded quickly...

, company-growth and requirements churn, three things that are emphasized in web-based business, coincide with the principles of the Agile

Agile software development

Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams...

practices. Some agile lifecycle models are:

Extreme Programming
Extreme Programming
Extreme programming is a software development methodology which is intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements...
Scrum
Scrum (development)
Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management often seen in agile software development, a type of software engineering....
Timebox development
Feature Driven Development
Feature Driven Development
Feature-driven development is an iterative and incremental software development process. It is one of a number of Agile methods for developing software and forms part of the Agile Alliance. FDD blends a number of industry-recognized best practices into a cohesive whole. These practices are all...

Testing

Web applications undergo the same unit, integration

Integration testing

Integration testing is the phase in software testing in which individual software modules are combined and tested as a group. It occurs after unit testing and before validation testing...

and system testing

System testing

System testing of software or hardware is testing conducted on a complete, integrated system to evaluate the system's compliance with its specified requirements. System testing falls within the scope of black box testing, and as such, should require no knowledge of the inner design of the code or...

as traditional desktop applications. But because web application clients vary so greatly, teams might perform some additional testing, such as:

Security
Performance
Performance testing
In software engineering, performance testing is in general testing performed to determine how a system performs in terms of responsiveness and stability under a particular workload...

, Load
Load testing
Load testing is the process of putting demand on a system or device and measuring its response. Load testing is performed to determine a system’s behavior under both normal and anticipated peak load conditions. It helps to identify the maximum operating capacity of an application as well as any...

, and Stress
Stress testing
Stress testing is a form of testing that is used to determine the stability of a given system or entity. It involves testing beyond normal operational capacity, often to a breaking point, in order to observe the results...
HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

/CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...

validation
Accessibility
Web accessibility
Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality...
Usability
Usability testing
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system...
Cross-browser
Cross-browser
Cross-browser refers to the ability for a website, web application, HTML construct or client-side script to support all the web browsers. The term cross-browser is often confused with multi-browser...

Many types of tests are automatable

Test automation

Test automation is the use of software to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and test reporting functions...

. At the component level, one of the xUnit

XUnit

Various code-driven testing frameworks have come to be known collectively as xUnit. These frameworks allow testing of different elements of software, such as functions and classes...

packages can be a helpful tool. Or an organization can create its own unit testing framework. At the GUI level, Watir

Watir

Web Application Testing in Ruby is a toolkit used to automate browser-based tests during web application development. This automated test tool uses the Ruby scripting language to drive Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari, and is available as a RubyGems gem...

or iMacros

IMacros

iMacros is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer web browsers which adds record and replay functionality similar to that found in web testing and form filler software. The macros can be combined and controlled via JavaScript. Demo macros and JavaScript code...

are useful.

Tools

In the case of ASP.NET

ASP.NET

ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...

, a developer can use Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all...

to write code. But, as with most other programming languages, he/she can also use a text editor. Notepad++

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a text editor and source code editor for Windows. One advantage of Notepad++ over the built-in Windows text editor, Notepad, is tabbed editing, which allows working with multiple open files.Notepad++ is distributed as free software...

is an example. WebORB Integration Server

WebORB Integration Server

WebORB is an integration server developed and maintained by Midnight Coders Incorporated. It is used in SOA/Rich Internet Application development projects to connect browser clients and mobile clients with backend services and databases...

for .NET can be used to integrate .NET services, data and media with any web client. It includes developer productivity tools and APIs for remoting, messaging and data management.

For ColdFusion

ColdFusion

In computing, ColdFusion is the name of a commercial rapid application development platform invented by Jeremy and JJ Allaire in 1995. ColdFusion was originally designed to make it easier to connect simple HTML pages to a database, by version 2 it had...

and the related open source CFML engines, there are several tools available for writing code. These include Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, the CFEclipse

CFEclipse

CFEclipse is a CFML plugin for the Eclipse platform. It includes many of the features common to modern IDEs such as code assist, context help, syntax highlighting, snippets, and more....

plugin for Eclipse (software)

Eclipse (software)

Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system...

and Adobe CF Builder. You can also use any text editor such as Notepad++

Notepad++

or TextEdit

TextEdit

TextEdit is a simple, open source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with Mac OS X since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-compatible operating systems such as Linux...

.

For PHP

PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...

, the Zend Development Environment provides numerous debugging

Debugging

Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware, thus making it behave as expected. Debugging tends to be harder when various subsystems are tightly coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to emerge...

tools and provides a rich feature set to make a PHP

PHP

developer's life easier. WebORB Integration Server

WebORB Integration Server

for PHP can be used to integrate PHP classes and data with any web client. It includes developer productivity tools and APIs for remoting, messaging and data management.

For Java (programming language)

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, WebORB Integration Server

WebORB Integration Server

for Java can be used to integrate Java services, data and media with any web client. It includes developer productivity tools and APIs for remoting, messaging and data management.

Several code generation

Automatic programming

In computer science, the term automatic programming identifies a type of computer programming in which some mechanism generates a computer program to allow human programmers to write the code at a higher abstraction level....

tools such as dbQwikSite or M-Power

M-Power

m-Power is software which automates enterprise web application development and modernizes legacy business applications. m-Power uses a point-and-click interface to create enterprise web applications. Applications created by m-Power run on any database or platform that supports Java.- History...

are available to automate the development of code. Using such tools, non-technical users can produce working code, and experienced coders can accelerate the development cycle.

Other tools include various browsers

Web browser

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

, FTP clients

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...

, etc. See :Category:Web development software.

Frameworks and Reuse

Practicing code reuse

Code reuse

Code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software.-Overview:Ad hoc code reuse has been practiced from the earliest days of programming. Programmers have always reused sections of code, templates, functions, and procedures...

and using web application framework

Web application framework

A web application framework is a software framework that is designed to support the development of dynamic websites, web applications and web services. The framework aims to alleviate the overhead associated with common activities performed in Web development...

s can greatly improve both productivity and time to market

Time to market

In commerce, time to market is the length of time it takes from a product being conceived until its being available for sale. TTM is important in industries where products are outmoded quickly...

(McConnell 1996:537). Reusing externally developed components can allow an organization to reap the above benefits, while potentially saving money. However, for smaller components, it might be just as easy to develop your own components as it would be to learn new API

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

s. Also, if a component is essential to the business, an organization might want to control its development.

Risk

Technologies

Lifecycle Model

Testing

Tools

Frameworks and Reuse

See also