Is specialization in the Web/Internet industry a good thing? Should we encourage or discourage what I am seeing as a convergence to everyone “trying” to do everything, while at the same there are more and more technologies to worry about?
Analogy
I'll start off everything by saying experts in certain industries are not always an expert in every aspect of said industry. Let's be sure we are on the same level with this simple analogy;
Automobile Industry;
- A stock car racer with 15 years experience may not be the best person to paint a car
- A used car salesman with 30 years of experience may not be the best person to repair the same car he just sold
- An auto repair technician with 10 years experience may not be the best person to race a car in the left-turn-circuit
- An automobile aerodynamic engineer that graduated from UC San Diego may not be the best person to give you a driving test
(that probably levels the playing field now…)
The Focus
There are dozens (if not hundreds) of technologies used in the Wide Web World (I know that is out of order, it’s on purpose). These technologies range from simple HTML with shameful font and marquee tags to highly specialized database backed coding platforms with complex IDEs used to code the core platform (like JAVA & its Spring Framework). Which of these are really the best and which should be avoided? I guess the decision between A-B-C… in the WWW is like choosing a car for most people. Some like them old and simple and others prefer them new and complex.
Options
With so many options available today let’s take a look at the Wide Web World technologies according to Wikipedia.org.
Programmin Languages for the Web with their CMS & Framework Options
| Language |
Frameworks and CMS |
| ASP.NET |
SharePoint | ASP.NET MVC | ASP.NET Web Forms | ASP.NET Dynamic Data | BFC | DotNetNuke | MonoRail | OpenRasta | Umbraco | Vici MVC |
| ColdFusion |
ColdSpring | Fusebox | Mach-II | Model-Glue | onTap | on Wheels |
| C++ |
CppCMS | Wt - Web toolkit |
| JAVA |
Apache Struts | AppFuse | Flexive | GWT | Grails | Vaadin | ItsNat | JavaServer Faces | Jspx | Makumba | OpenXava | Play | Eclipse RAP | Reasonable Server Faces | RIFE | Restlet | Seam | Spring | Stripes | Tapestry | WebWork | Wicket | ZK | ICEfaces |
| Perl |
Catalyst | Interchange | Mason | Maypole | Reaction | WebGUI |
| PHP |
CakePHP | CodeIgniter | Drupal | Horde | Joomla | Lynx | Midgard | MODx | Nette | Qcodo | Seagull | SilverStripe | Symfony |
TYPO3 | Wordpress | Zend |
| Python |
Django | Nevow | TurboGears | Plone | Pyjamas | Pylons | web2py | Zope |
| Ruby |
Ruby on Rails | Merb | Sinatra | Hobo | Camping | Nitro | Ramaze | Scala Lift |
Main Discussion Points
As shown above there are many platforms, frameworks, CMS, MVCs and languages that Web sites can be built upon. We all have our preference and certainly we all have ones we avoid like the plague as well.
The questions are...;
- Why do you prefer your choice over someone else's?
- Which really is the best?
- Why is that the best?
Submit your answers
here!
The answers to those questions above are what I am really interested in hearing at this point.
Here are my answers to those so you know where I am coming from.
- I prefer my choices because I am most familiar with them and they have not let me down yet.
- I am a Visual Basic or PHP person.
- The rest of the stuff just seems like fluff or is too specialized.
