Future of Web Development

Imagine yourself walking down a random shady street after dusk with a map in hand and a scribbled address of your destination on a frayed piece of paper. You trace the map for the umpteenth time, and not a living soul in sight. You dejectedly conclude that you are lost. Unless you live in the 21st century where you flick out your phone, switch on Google Navigation and voila, you have reached your destination.”Thank God”, you sigh.

Nay, the person you have to thank is Tim Berners-Lee.

Whilst Tim was a Fellow at CERN (now renowned for smashing subatomic particles),he proposed the idea of a platform that would abet efficient communication in CERN which later blossomed into the World Wide Web. It was an exponentially behemoth version of office water-cooler talk, where you can keep track of databases, relating one set of data to its concerned documents, linking one set of data to another, etc. The possibilities were endless. They still are.

The web has evolved, and so has the languages implemented to build it. Web development is essentially the coding and programming of the skeleton of a webpage from the atomic level. Some of the various languages popularly used to create a webpage are

HTML

HyperText Markup Language is the standard ‘markup’ language used for the development of web pages. It was used initially to display the desired information as a document on the web. Markup would essentially mean a set of ‘tags’ or precise rules that are incorporated to enable auxiliary information for display.HTML is the backbone of every web page that you see in your browser. It determines the basic structure of the webpage (header blocks, location of texts).

< Also known as the angled bracket language >

CSS

Cascading Style Sheet is primarily used to modify the layout and appearance of web pages. Text styles and sizes, thickness and colours of borders, cell padding and image modifications can be adapted and changed to the whims of the coder.CSS is primarily used for aesthetic reasons.

Brings colour and joy to the page. Essentially a web rainbow.

JavaScript

JavaScript is used by programmers to breathe life into the webpage. Visual displays, interactive content, animation of texts, appearance of thumbnails are all controlled by the JavaScript. The popping of chat boxes on numerous social networking sites and the dreaded ‘typing....’ in the conversation box during chats with a crush are few of the numerous magical features modified by JavaScript.

“Java, Naam to suna hi hoga”

PHP

PHP is a server side scripting language which is quite popular as general purpose programming language because of the fact that it is a free software which operates under

almost every operating system.PHP makes it possible for the page to generate ‘copies’. When you login in to your Facebook account, you will surely get a ‘wall’ and feeds different from your friend’s account, thus you give your personal information to that particular webpage. This is possible solely due to the wizardry of PHP.

elePHPhant,get it?

Think of it as your dream car which you longingly want to buy. The structure determining number of tyres and doors, length of the seats and specification of the engine is given by HTML. The appearance of the car associated with its colour, shape, tint is defined by CSS. JavaScript enables the car to run in the desired direction when the accelerator is pressed and is primarily essential for the basic functions of the car whilst PHP is responsible for any dynamic changes in the car, ie.modifications such as nitrous boosters and spoilers (the gaudy tail fin).

Your webpage

Web development is a dynamic field, wherein changes are ringed in everyday ala the H1-B visa rules.HTML was prominent in the nascent stages of the web, being one of the forefront languages in web coding.XML(Extensible Markup Language) was hyped in the 90’s,regarded as the successor to HTML due to its ‘extensible’ tags and relatively more structured format.PHP is a necessity in the present scenario, and rest assured, fast forward a few years and there surely will be another novel coding language that takes centre stage. JavaScript dominates every aspect related to a client computer and will surely take over other areas of coding as well, due to the portability factor and its zippy compatibility with the web. The rapid change in the web scene coupled with the astronomical number of people involved in it necessitates adaptability and flexibility (compulsion to master every language available is a given).

Languages would look like neon gibberish

The web is expanding. In the year that we celebrate its 25th anniversary, we find Wi-Fi right adjacent to our basic amenities. If exchange of information was the motto of the Web, then that invariantly leads to exchange of money in the virtual world. Enormous transactions being virtual are the norm rather than the exception. ’Bitcoins’, an avenue pursued by the Winklevoss twins (those sulky burly duplicates from The Social Network) amongst others has evolved to be quite the rage. Apparently, they managed to book a seat on the Virgin Galactic flight purely from the profits made from Bitcoin. Development of mobile sites along with an App is the way to go. Tim Berners-Lee hints that we are nowhere near the zenith, still trudging at the bottom of the curve. Expecting a Cyborg age in the near future would not be an overt exaggeration.

Bitcoin gets you a seat on this beauty

Yet, with great power comes great responsibility. Protocol has to be followed, for without order, there will be chaos. ’Snooping’ by the NSA has been received with utmost outrage by the rest of the world, whilst Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame is still persecuted across the globe. Ethical and social issues will emerge at the forefront, and if the present scenario is a hint, they will be ignored and thrashed without any remorse. ’Copyright’ will cease to be a valid term due to the sheer amount of information that would be available to any user.

The Web has been in existent for just over 25 years, yet it has taken over our lives unlike any other technology known to man. Coding languages will be developed, hyped, discarded and developed again. It’s a vicious cycle that will nonetheless continue unabatedly, with endless possibilities. Mobile networking will emerge a juggernaut, while ‘Jarvis’ like interfaces will rear its majestic head in the years to come. The future of the web is in our hands, and it’s we who decide how to mould it.

“We can’t blame the technology when we make mistakes” -Tim Berners-Lee.