A list of technologies for modern web development.
Introduction
With this article I want to share a compilation of some well known top technologies that can be used today to develop a modern web application. The web development world has changed a lot because of its adaptation to the mobile and social media context, and a lot of new technologies, including servers, databases, development frameworks, and libraries have emerged to help us to resolve several new problems and challenges.
Background
If you are a project manager, an architect, or a developer, you must choose the appropriate server, database, language, framework or library for the design and implementation of the entire architecture or for some modules of your modern web application. This article references some of the principal and more used technologies that can help you to achieve this.
Servers
Nginx
Ngin is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. Unlike traditional servers, Nginx doesn’t rely on threads to handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but more importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load.
| http://wiki.nginx.org/Main |
NodeJs
Node.js is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
| http://nodejs.org |
Databases
MongoDb
MongoDB (from “humongous”) is an open-source document database, and the leading NoSQL database, designed for ease of development and scaling. Instead of storing data in tables as is done in a “classical” relational database, MongoDB stores structured data as JSON-like documents with dynamic schemas (MongoDB calls the format BSON), making the integration of data in certain types of applications easier and faster.
| http://www.mongodb.org |
Redis
Redis is an open source, BSD licensed, advanced key-value store. It is often referred to as a data structure server since keys can contain strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets. In its outer layer, the Redis data model is a dictionary where keys are mapped to values. One of the main differences between Redis and other structured storage systems is that values are not limited to strings.
| http://redis.io |
General purpose Frameworks / Libraries
Backbone.JS
Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface.
| http://backbonejs.org |
Underscore.Js
Underscore is a utility-belt library for JavaScript that provides a lot of the functional programming support that you would expect in Prototype.js (or Ruby), but without extending any of the built-in JavaScript objects. It’s the tie to go along with jQuery’s tux, and Backbone.js’s suspenders.
| http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore |
Sencha frameworks
Sencha creates development frameworks and tools that help you design, develop, and deploy applications for desktop and mobile devices. Their goal is to enhance your development experience and final results by providing well-structured, Web standards-based frameworks and tools that make drafting functional UI and CSS3 animations a breeze, and cloud services for supporting your application available anytime, anywhere.
| http://www.sencha.com/ |
Zepto.Js
Zepto is a minimalist JavaScript library for modern browsers with a largely jQuery-compatible API. If you use jQuery, you already know how to use Zepto.
| http://zeptojs.com |
Angular JS
HTML enhanced for web apps! HTML is great for declaring static documents, but it falters when we try to use it for declaring dynamic views in web-applications. AngularJS lets you extend HTML vocabulary for your application. The resulting environment is extraordinarily expressive, readable, and quick to develop.
| http://angularjs.org |
Bootstrap
Sleek, intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development. Bootstrap utilizes LESS CSS, is compiled via Node, and is managed through GitHub to help nerds do awesome stuff on the web. Bootstrap was made to not only look and behave great in the latest desktop browsers (as well as IE7!), but in tablet and smartphone browsers via responsive CSS as well.
http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap
Specific Libraries
Modernizr
Modernizr is a small JavaScript library that detects the availability of native implementations for next-generation web technologies, i.e. features that stem from the HTML5 and CSS3 specifications. Many of these features are already implemented in at least one major browser (most of them in two or more), and what Modernizr does is, very simply, tell you whether the current browser has this feature natively implemented or not.
| http://modernizr.com |
Knockout
Knockout is a JavaScript library that helps you to create rich, responsive display and editor user interfaces with a clean underlying data model. Any time you have sections of UI that update dynamically (e.g., changing depending on the user’s actions or when an external data source changes), KO can help you implement it more simply and maintainably.
| http://knockoutjs.com |
Require.Js
RequireJS is a JavaScript file and module loader. It is optimized for in-browser use, but it can be used in other JavaScript environments, like Rhino and Node. Using a modular script loader like RequireJS will improve the speed and quality of your code.
| http://requirejs.org |
Amplify Js
AmplifyJS solves the following problems:
- AJAX Request Management: amplify.request provides a clean and elegant request abstraction for all types of data, even allowing for transformation prior to consumption.
- Client Side Component Communication : amplify.publish/subscribe provides a clean, performant API for component to component communication.
- Client Side Browser & Mobile Device Storage : amplify.store takes the confusion out of HTML5 localStorage. It doesn’t get simpler than using amplify.store(key, data)! It even works flawlessly on mobile devices.
| http://amplifyjs.com |
Moment.Js
A 4.8k JavaScript date library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates.
http://momentjs.com |
D3 JS
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation. http://d3js.org
Breezze
Breeze is a JavaScript library that helps you manage data in rich client applications. If you store data in a relational database, query and save those data as complex object graphs, and share these graphs across multiple screens of your JavaScript client, Breeze is for you.
| http://www.breezejs.com/home |
Mongoose JS
Mongoose is a MongoDB object modeling tool designed to work in an asynchronous environment. Woks fine with Node JS.
Meta -Languages
CoffeScript
CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. Underneath all those awkward braces and semicolons, JavaScript has always had a gorgeous object model at its heart. CoffeeScript is an attempt to expose the good parts of JavaScript in a simple way.
| http://coffeescript.org |
TypeScript
TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. Any browser. Any host. Any OS. Open Source.
| http://www.typescriptlang.org |
Less
The dynamic stylesheet language. LESS extends CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions.LESS runs on both the server-side (with Node.js and Rhino) or client-side (modern browsers only).
| http://lesscss.org |
Application containers
PhoneGap (Apache Cordova)
Is an HTML5 app platform that allows you to author native applications with web technologies and get access to APIs and app stores. PhoneGap leverages web technologies developers already know best… HTML and JavaScript.
| http://www.phonegap.com |
AppCelerator
Create rich native iOS, Android, hybrid, and mobile web apps from a single JavaScript-based SDK. Titanium empowers you to choose the right way to reach your end users on any device.
| http://www.appcelerator.com |
License
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)
from:http://www.codeproject.com/Reference/597538/Modern-Web-Development
