Web Development India - Bringing Blocks Together

Global companies are looking at India for web development and other specialized web-related services. By delivering superior quality services to these world players, Indian firms have taken the internet marketing industry by a storm. Additionally, Indian companies also allow these global firms to monitor the progress of a project. And all this in a tremendously cost-effective manner.

Any website essentially has two elements to it - front-end and back-end. Simply put front-end is those elements that the user can see, and back-end is those that are not visible to the user. In the modern context, development is defined as that which takes care of all non-design elements. Compared to the times when it began, web technology has made web development a more accessible line of work. There are enough tools using which even a lay person can build an attractive website. At the same time there are web standards that encourage web developers to work in such a manner that the maintenance of the site becomes less cumbersome. Creation and maintenance are the two essential aspects of a website that a developer is responsible for.

When developing a website the first thing a developer takes into account is the kind of site it is going to be in terms of the amount of content on it. Additionally, another important piece of information he/she needs to gather is whether the website will be static or would be updated on a regular basis. This information determines whether the need for a database creation. By definition a database is a system that is meant to facilitate easy storage and retrieval of data. Yet there is a difference of opinion between web developers on this issue, as with many others. There are those who feel that the storage of images on databases is not a very effective exercise. The alternative to the database system is the file system.

The element of subjectivity is often not associated with web development. Yet there is a great element of subjectivity in this largely technical area of work. A web developer is not just a technical person who uses coding language to put together the creative ideas of other people. A major responsibility of the web developer is to assess the efficiency of these ideas. If at this stage of evaluation a developer feels a certain design idea will not work then he/she suggests a revision to the proposed model.

In order to minimize, if not remove, the kinds of conflicts mentioned earlier, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was established as the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Over 400 organizations that are a part of the W3C consortium not only develop and implement standards but are also involved in educating people about the Web. Developers must follow standards if they want products developed by them to be considered W3C compliant. What sets W3C apart from other international standards bodies is that it does not have any kind of a certification program. The absence of a certification program was a conscious decision taken because the organization wanted to create opportunities for technologies to flourish rather than create roadblocks in the path of the growth of web development technologies.

Many of the recommendations of the W3C are partially implemented, and many are widely in use. Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XTML) for instance, a markup language that is the successor of HTML is W3C recommended. XHTML is an application of Extensible Markup Language (XML) which is similarly W3C recommended. CSS, which is used for the styling of web pages that are written in HTML and XHTML (and others), is also maintained by the W3C consortium.

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web is responsible for the founding of this organization. The W3C as an organization in a sense marks the journey that the web development has come a long way since Tim Berners-Lee introduced the internet to the world. Statistics show that web development is already and will continue to be a rapidly growing industry. And this does not just mean big companies establishing their online presence and carrying on campaigns parallel to print campaigns. Lately it's the influx of smaller companies and individuals with personal homepages that are crowding the web. If the web is bringing about a dramatic change in the field of communication and commerce, web development has a huge role to play in it. And all this, is nothing less than a revolution led by web development. The latest revolutionary inclusion being blogs. A derivative of web log, blogs are basically online journals maintained by individuals for professional or personal reasons. The world of blogging in a sense mirrors the World Wide Web. The purpose is to communicate, but there are innumerable styles in which it is done.

This is just the beginning. It is unimaginable where the World Wide Web and the field of web development would stand in another decade or so. But the certainty of change coupled with unpredictability is what makes this world both interesting and engaging.