Web development is a term used to describe the activities in developing a web site for the World Wide Web (WWW) or intranet. Activities such as e-commerce, web content development, web design and web server configuration etc., are just some them.
For web professionals, web development describes the non-design aspects of web sites like coding and writing mark-up. Web development can range from the most complex activities to a single page of text. Smaller organizations might only need one to three web developers.
However, for organizations and larger businesses, web development consists of many web developers, may be a hundred or so. Different departments can collaborate on web development.
The web development industry has been the one of the fastest growing industries. In 1995, there were only 1000 web development companies in the United States. However, by 2005, the numbers expanded to 30,000. This is due to the pushing of large businesses to sell services and products and to automate business workflow along with the growth of small web development companies.
Further, the cost of developing a web site has dropped significantly. Before, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop a web site, now you can create a simple web site with just less than a thousand.
Many web development tools are readily available for developers now. Most are free of charge like LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) to help increase the popularity of web development. Unmistakably, the launch of Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver has helped web developers come up with a web site in minutes. Traditionally, developing a web site is done solely on a desk-based computer.
Now, one can interact with online applications for better results. This allows decentralization of information and will surely help many developers. One of the noticeable transformations in communication can be seen through e-commerce. For instance, eBay, they have changed the way consumers buy and sell goods and services.
Web development is not just about creating a good web site but it also takes upon the web site's security. There are many hackers and malicious programs in the market right now, and these programs can easily hack into web sites and gather private information that can lead to stealing and fraud.
Web site language like scripts can be exploited. Thus, before releasing a web site publicly, rigorous testing will be done first to prevent exploits from happening.
