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Archive for September, 2011

Web framework focus

September 7th, 2011 6 comments

Over the years I’ve used, read about, and played with lots of different web frameworks. One of the things I’ve concluded is that none of them are perfect. As with the languages they live on top of, each of these frameworks is a tool that fits certain tasks better than others.

One other thing I’ve realized is that the focus of the community effects the type of web sites that are made. In some frameworks there’s a huge emphasis on Ajax integration (such as web2py), then there are others that are more focused with data manipulation and control of flow (such as Django). Now one other interesting thing is that this focus leads to different types of sites being made.

Two mammoth examples that come to mind are Amazon and Google. While they’re not the most perfect examples for these purposes, I bring them up because they both are layered more than the average site we work on. There’s Java or C++ behind doing all the number crunching. Then layers of other languages in between. One thing about sites like these is, although they all have Ajaxy components, not one of those pieces is superfluous. It takes so much work to tie one of these features in that there just won’t be anything extra.

With a site made with Lift, Wicket or Web2Py I think you get the sense that they’re giving away Ajax for free and they feel that they have to make use of it. Rails sites also seem to be heavier on Ajax than the average site. Django sites on the other hand for the most part are lighter on this feature since it’s not as simple as to tie in these pieces.

These are just observations I’ve made and I’m making no judgment call on what the right amount of Ajax is, or the right framework. It’s just interesting to see how tools seem to be effecting what gets produced even though you could essentially produce the same exact sites with all of these tools.

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