Web Application Development: Resources, Best Practices, and How to Do It

Every web application development company should know all the details that distinguish an ordinary web application from an outstanding one.

So what is a web application?

Simply put, a web application is a dynamic website combined with server-side programming. This allows web applications to interact with users, connect to backend databases, and deliver results to the browser.

Here are a few examples of web applications: Social networks, online banking, e-commerce, online booking, interactive games, blogs and internet forums, and much more.

Coding: List of Web Technologies

For web application development, web development services use two types of coding:

Client-Side Scripting

This type of code is executed or interpreted by browsers, and typically all site visitors can view it by clicking the "View Source" button in the browser menu.

The most popular Client Side Scripting technologies include:

• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
• JavaScript Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
• jQuery (JavaScript framework library - widely used in Ajax development)
• MooTools (JavaScript framework library - widely used in Ajax development)
• Dojo Toolkit (JavaScript framework library - widely used in Ajax development)

Server-Side Scripting

This type of coding is executed or interpreted by the web server and is not visible to the general public or site visitors.

The most popular Server Side Scripting technologies include:

• PHP (very common server-side scripting language - Open Source on Linux/Unix - free distribution, usually combined with MySQL database)
• Zend Framework (object-oriented web application framework based on PHP)
• ASP (Microsoft Web Server (IIS) scripting language)
• ASP.NET (Microsoft's Web Application Framework - successor to ASP)
• ColdFusion (Adobe's web application framework)
• Ruby on Rails (Ruby programming's Web Application Framework - free distribution)
• Perl (general-purpose high-level programming language and server-side scripting language - free distribution - lost its popularity to PHP)
• Python (general-purpose high-level programming language and server-side scripting language - free distribution)

Web Application Architecture and Its Support for Future Growth

A company engaged in website development must remember that a good web application architecture supports future growth driven by expanded requirements, future compatibility, and increased demand.

Web application architecture defines the application's functionality through object-oriented programming. The most important characteristics include:

• Providing persistent data over HTTP that can be understood by client code and vice versa
• Ensuring the correctness of requests
• Ensuring user authentication
• Limiting user access to data based on their access rights
• Creating, updating, and deleting records

Trends in Web Application Architecture

Like all other trends, trends in web application architecture evolve with technology. One of the latest trends worth mentioning is service-oriented architecture.

This trend is interesting because most of the application code exists as services, each of which is its own HTTP API. This allows one part of the code to request another part of the code that might be running on a different server.

Another new trend worth mentioning is single-page applications, where the web interface is presented through a JavaScript application. It uses WebSockets or AJAX to make asynchronous or synchronous requests to the web server without reloading the page. As a result, users experience fewer page load interruptions and a better user experience.

It should be noted that web application development is often oriented around objects stored in SQL database tables. Each row has its own specific record. So when we talk about relational databases, it all comes down to relationships. By simply listing a row and column, you can access records.

Thanks to these two trends, viewing applications on various devices and platforms becomes much easier. Even when the application code remains unchanged, it can be viewed on small screens as expected.

What Makes a Good Web Application Architecture

Having a working application is not everything. Web development companies know they also need a good web application architecture. Here are some points that make a web application architecture good:

• Problems are solved consistently and uniformly
• Architecture is as simplified as possible
• Supports the latest standards, including A/B testing and analytics
• Provides fast response time
• Uses security standards to reduce the likelihood of malicious intrusions
• Does not crash
• Self-healing
• Has no single point of failure
• Easily scalable
• Allows easy creation of known data
• Errors are logged in a user-friendly manner
• Automated deployment

Best Web Application Development Frameworks

Ruby on Rails

This is one of the most popular server-side web application frameworks. It is an MVC (model-view-controller) framework that provides standard structures for web pages, web services, and databases.

It is one of the free website development services that can help you with your next web project. Let's look at some pros and cons:

Pros:

• Wide selection of excellent tools for building feature-oriented applications
• Easily accessible library and highest code quality
• Test automation is supported to create flawless software

Cons:

• Rails Framework boot speed
• Some I/O libraries do not support multithreading

AngularJS

The distinctive feature of AngularJS is that it allows you to extend the HTML vocabulary for your application. As a result, you get a readable and expressive environment that develops quickly. In addition, it is one of the few software development services that allows you to modify or replace any functions according to your own workflow.

Let's look at a few more pros and cons:

Pros:

• Fast loading time
• Lightweight framework
• Expressive framework
• Easy testability
• Two-way data binding
• Extends HTML

Cons:

• Requires knowledge about the framework
• Router has limitations
• Using directives can be difficult
• Debugging code is not so easy

Ember.js

Ember.js is the best framework for a web application development company with ambitious web developers. It was created to increase productivity and help developers get work done faster and easier.

Here are some pros and cons:

Pros:

• Strong built-in router
• Simple web components
• Full stack development
• Stability without stagnation

Cons:

• Getters and setters are used for testing. If you don't use getters and setters, your web applications will contain errors.

CakePHP

CakePHP is an open-source platform that requires less code and makes web development faster and easier. As the name suggests, it is written in PHP. Let's look at its pros and cons:

Pros:

• One of the most budget-friendly web development applications.
• Scaffolding code generation
• Fast and flexible template system
• Reliable security features
• MVC coding pattern

Cons:

• One-way routing
• Documentation requires significant effort
• To create fancy URLs, you need to update the default route

Phalcon

Phalcon is a high-performance PHP framework delivered as a C extension. It is free to use and follows the MVC pattern. It has an innovative architecture and the lowest overhead for MVC-based applications.

Pros:

• Increased execution speed
• Reduced resource usage
• High performance
• Ability to handle a larger number of HTTP requests.

Cons:

• Requires root/administrative access
• Compiled extension

Zend

Zend is one of the object-oriented web application development services that supports a wide range of database systems.

Pros:

• Flexible caching subsystem
• Extensible MVC implementation with layout support
• Modular framework
• Extensibility and ease of adaptation

Cons:

• Common objects are loaded on every script execution
• External additional files clutter the disk
• Using external module functionality requires calling dl() each time.

ASP.net

With ASP.net, web application development for reliable desktop and mobile systems becomes much easier than before. It works with the HTTP protocol and also optimizes HTTP commands. It is a CLR framework that uses the best web development technologies.

Pros:

• Large applications can be developed with less coding effort
• Safe and reliable environment
• Ease of writing and maintaining source code
• Ease of deployment
• Memory leaks, infinite loops are quickly terminated

Cons:

• Coding becomes somewhat complex for customization
• For Silverlight, data access is limited
• Direct calls via ADO.NET are limited

Symfony

Symfony is a set of reusable PHP components and a PHP framework for web development. It is great for building robust applications that are fully customizable thanks to all the tools that give web development companies full control over configuration.

Pros:

• Multiple developers can manage the project
• Adds security restrictions for user authentication
• Ability to easily implement advanced features
• Performance testing

Cons:

• Requires time to learn
• Implementing common requirements also takes time

Express

Express is an excellent framework for developing custom web applications. With it, you can create single-page, multi-page, or hybrid applications. Let's look at the pros and cons.

Pros:

• Fast and minimalist framework
• Many useful features for web and mobile applications
• Developer-friendly API creation support
• Concurrency support

Cons:

• Requires time to understand the code structure
• Lack of NodeJS libraries and ExpressJS middleware modules

CodeIgniter

How do you monitor application development? Start by using good frameworks like CodeIgniter. This framework is known for its clear documentation and small footprint, and it is excellent for building functional web applications.

Pros:

• Compatibility with standard hosting
• Unrestricted coding and naming conventions
• Lightweight and extensive
• Well-documented Possessed Libraries

Cons:

• Company-developed framework
• Irregular releases
• No built-in ORM

Choose the Right Tool

There are so many good tools to choose from when building new web applications that it can become overwhelming, and you might end up picking the first one just to get it over with. That could be a mistake.

We have already mentioned several web application development tools, but how can you be sure you are choosing the one you need? First, you need to understand the new frameworks of 2018 and how they work.

Understanding Web Development Frameworks

In recent years, you may have noticed more and more web development frameworks appearing, designed to make web application development simpler and more efficient.

The main goal of a framework is to use tools and libraries that help you achieve a specific technical objective and simplify development in your chosen language. How they solve that problem is what sets them apart and helps you choose the right one.

Now let's talk about the specific benefits and advantages of using the right web application framework.

Benefits and Advantages

• Programmatic actions and logic are separated from HTML, CSS, and design files. This allows designers without programming experience to easily edit the interface and make design changes.
• Builds are based on modules, libraries, and tools. Programmers can easily share libraries and implement complex features and functions simply and efficiently.
• With such a structure, it is much easier to establish best coding practices with consistent logic and coding standards. Developers can get up to speed with the code in no time.

Coding Guidelines

Coding guidelines are a set of rules and standards used in web application development. They apply to coding logic, naming conventions, classes and functions, statements, formatting and indentation, file organization, file names, structure, and folder names.

They offer a number of benefits, including:

• Best environment for multiple programmers to collaborate on a project
• Excellent maintainability and version control
• Excellent readability and understanding of source code
• Other developers can easily understand and get familiar with the code

Web Development Lifecycle Model