Six Essential Skills for modern web application developers

From: http://www.csdn.net/article/2013-08-13/2816549--must-have-skills-of-modern-web-application-developers

What skills should modern web application developers possess? Author Joe stangarone summarizes the opinions of several experts in different fields (including his own ideas). These six skills are required by every web application developer.

In the past, application development had to focus on a large amount of professional knowledge. Programmers only needed to focus on a single language (such as COBOL, RPG, and C ++) and use this language to create applications. Today, the times are changing. The Web is no longer just concerned about the independent side. On the contrary, a modern web application developer should be "proficient in everything ". They need to understand not only the development, but also the Web Application Security Vulnerabilities and how to integrate with other devices. They also need to know how these applications run on tablets and smartphones.

In other words, web application development is becoming more complicated. It urgently needs a growing and evolving supporting skill.

So what skills should modern web application developers possess? Author Joe stangarone summarizes the opinions of several experts in different fields (including his own ideas). These six skills are required by every web application developer:

1. Security

In the past, enterprises installed internal applications, and applications based on firewalls could not communicate with third-party services or applications. With the development of software, modern Web applications can be integrated with other devices and stored on ECS instances or access multiple types of devices. Therefore, security issues are particularly important.

"As an application developer (Web/desktop), deep understanding of application security is one of the most important skills ." Stephen Jenner, Chief Security Consultant for veracode, said, "in today's world, there is endless news about security issues, most of which expose sensitive information of millions of people. Therefore, web application developers must know how to prevent common vulnerabilities, such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. To protect applications from malicious security attacks during creation, and to protect users' sensitive information, this is also a basic skill that all developers should learn ."

2. User Experience (UX) Design

"With the increasing demand for mobile device users, it is increasingly important for developers to fully understand the user experience design ." Michael Smith, CEO of raster media, said, "The days when the design team is solely responsible for the user experience of an application are gone. Developers must consider interaction, animation, speed, and communication between apps ."

I fully agree with this point of view. There are several important factors in user experience design.First, users' expectations have increased.. Users download a new application and want to know how it runs immediately. They want to get the same experience from their business applications.Second, users have a choice.If they do not like this application, they will find another alternative. As user expectations increase and competition increases, more intuitive interface requirements are more important than ever.

3. Adaptive/responsive design

When talking about UX design, web app developers must build applications that can run anywhere. The question now is no longer "How do users interact with my applications ?" It evolved into "How do users interact with my applications on each device type ?"

It is not easy to achieve this. You must answer the following questions: "Where is the button set on the smartphone? How do you format a data table on a small screen? What happens when the device switches from Portrait mode to Landscape mode ?" In short, Web developers must know how to adapt their web applications to different screen sizes.

For cross-platform/device, two main methods are responsive design and adaptive design:

• Responsive DesignThe fluid mesh and css3 media queries are used to adapt to applications of various screen sizes/types. You can find various responsive design cases on the web. For example, thenextweb is a typical case. You will find that when you adjust the browser size, the website will automatically adapt to the new size.
• Adaptive designDifferent HTML pages are provided based on different devices. For example, an independent web application may require three independent presentation layers (HTML): PC, tablet, and smartphone. For example, access the Web
  APP, the appearance and behavior display are different.

Which method is the best? I would like to say that they have their own advantages. The response method is a good choice for Web page design and web application information. The adaptive method is better suited to data-driven Web applications, especially those that contain data tables. Why? This is because it allows developers to better control data structures and styles, rather than trying to adapt to a single table with multiple screen sizes, the adaptive design method allows you to create different forms for each device.

4. Javascript

Developers will always argue over the programming language they have chosen. You cannot persuade a Java programmer to praise php as the best, or vice versa, just as you cannot persuade a PHP programmer to agree that Java is the best. Most Web applications use JavaScript.

"With the development of mobile and web desktop applications, JavaScript has rapidly become the most important computer language ." Ben Bakhshi, founder of coordinato, said, "Many insiders believe that JavaScript encoding will significantly increase in the next 10 years ."

5. Web application architecture

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"Web application developers should pay full attention to the Web application architecture," said Tyler wasloud, software development manager of MRC. "developers should understand how the developed applications interact with all system components, and how the underlying architecture affects performance, such as portability, maintainability, and availability."

6. API Integration

Now, APIs have become an important aspect of web development. Essentially, Apis allow different web services to communicate with each other. Developers can call data on other applications/services to create applications.

Brendan O 'Connor, founder and CEO of simplecollegerecipes, believes that "API integration has become a necessary skill for Web application developers. API allows you to integrate content and information from other websites. It can be said that API benefits everyone, including end users, API providers, and programmers themselves ."

Summary:

Web application development is constantly evolving, and the skills of web development are constantly changing. Developers can stay in the development industry only when they keep forging ahead and learn new knowledge. Of course, it is almost impossible for most companies to master every kind of Web (mobile Web) skills. Most companies cannot provide different solutions for their employees in Web and mobile development, and they cannot do everything.

So how does your company solve the increasingly complex web application development problems? (Compilation/rnifeasy Editor/Chen qiuge)

From: MRC-productivity