Internet Development: Coding and Programming - Assignment Example

Internet Development – Coding and Programming By (Name) Course title Name of tutor Institution name Department Date of Submission Task 1. a) History of the web. The web, with the original full name as the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, in the year 1989 while working as a software engineer at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), a large particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. CERN was a laboratory that received global scientists and researchers who came and went back to their home countries. Tim felt that there was a need to share data and findings among the scientists, which became difficult due to the physical separation from each other. Tim wanted to fill the gap and came up with a proposal for the solution of the problem which he submitted to his management at CERN. He found an enthusiastic collaborator in Robert Cailliau, who helped in rewriting the proposal and sought resources within CERN. They both pitched their ideas to the European Conference on Hypertext Technology in September 1990, but there were no appreciable vendors who could buy their idea of marrying hypertext with the internet. .The proposal was not however immediately accepted but they did not give up. October 1990 saw the development of the three World wide Web technologies: Hyper-Text Markup language, the web publishing format, with the ability to format a document and link resources, Unified Resource Locator, a kind of link that is unique to a given resource in the web, and Hypertext Transfer protocol which allows the retrieval of linked resources (Tim, 2000). Currently, the World Wide Web is the most popular communication tool that has drastically changed the lifestyle of millions of people around the world. The web has changed the way we read and research, the way people buy and sell, the way people socialize and love and even the way people collaborate and share ideas. With about 25% of the world’s population engaged, the web by 2008 had more than 1 trillion web pages (Web Foundation, 2014). b) Web development and techniques involved. In a general term, web development is the production of web pages for publication on the internet through the World Wide Web. It involves web design which is a combination of various skills and techniques involving visual and graphical design of web interfaces. In a more savvy way, web development is a combination of several skills and techniques put together to achieve the construction of a web page to be used over the internet. The initial web development technique was by the use of the Hypertext Markup language to design web pages and formatting web documents. In the modern world, more advance technologies, languages and techniques have been developed to make the process of web development more interesting, faster and easier. The current techniques involved in web development are the use of advanced languages like CSS, javascript, Ajax, ASP.NET. These are some of the newest emergence in the web development field. The web has progressively been utilized for storage of data and information not only in the form of web pages but also in the form of virtual containers called databases. This brings us to another technique that is used in web development, Database Design. Database design is done using various tools and various software that are dedicated to creation, management and control of the database systems and are called database Management Systems (DBMS). Web development is a process that begins from identification of a problem to be solved by the web interface, design of an interface, preparation of data, database design, design implementation and finally maintenance of the web interface. c) Web standards frameworks and importance Web standards refer to the formal, non-proprietary regulatory standards and respective technical specifications that define and describe the various aspects of the World Wide Web. The web standards are meant to make the web a better place by ensuring that both developers and web browsers follow a specific set of rules(Quittner & Joshua, 1999). These standards have been widely understood as the collection of standard best practices for websites in the World Wide Web. These standards consist of various regulations that are available within an array of documents associated with the world wide web. The documents include: the recommendations published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which is the overseeing body on the standards, Internet standard (STD) , documents by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Request for Comments (RFC) documents published by the Internet Engineering Task Force, Standards published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Standards published by Ecma International (formerly ECMA) , The Unicode Standard and various Unicode Technical Reports (UTRs) published by the Unicode Consortium. When developers by following the web standards, web developers widely simplify the process of web development since it becomes easier for one developer to understand the code written by another. The web standards also ensure that all browsers will display your Web site properly and effectively, without time-consuming rewrites and reloads of information. Web frameworks on the other hand are applications that enable the development of web enables applications. They are meant to hide the boilerplate and infrastructural code related to handling HTTP requests and responses. Web frameworks were introduced to allow dynamism of the initial hand-coded hypertext markup language and to enable web pages to handle more data dynamically by interacting with the user. The web has become a big resources that has helped the modern society in many ways. Buying and selling made easy, connecting and catching up with long time friends and colleagues, collaboration models, faster communication like video conferencing and chatting among other contemporary uses of the web by governments and organizations to gather and spread information. The web is also acting a big source of income for various developers who specialize in the design and development of web interfaces. There are e-commerce websites which have thrived in the online market like ebay and Amazon which are employing thousands of people all over the world. d) Applications and future directions. The web has been applied in various sectors in the modern world from governments, to public and private institutions, research firms and offices. The web is one of the largest sources of information in the contemporary word. The web is applied in the dissemination of news all over the worlds. The future of the internet can be said to be very bright. The World Wide Web Consortium alongside other organizations are hoping to have greater technologies integrated with the world wide web to enable a safer, faster and a more reliable web. The growth of the internet is fast and is expected to grow even faster. Task 2 The developed website is attached in the zip file. a) Methodology. The methodology used in the development of the website is the top-bottom analogy. The website building technique was done from developing the front end files and applying relevant styling to the files. The technology used involves the use of various languages including: HTML – for the skeleton design of layouts. CSS – for the styling of the HTML layouts to look better, smooth and modern. Javascript – Used in animating the image slideshows used in the home page and the album section. b) Accuracy. The accuracy of the data provided by the user in the contact form is achieved by the use of javascript. If a user submits an empty field, they are notified to retype the fields. Task 3 Testing. The website has been tested using various tests to ensure that it works fine and is compatible with most browsers. a) Environment testing. This test was carried out to evaluate the level of abstraction between the code handling and the user interface. The results of the test showed that the user was completely abstracted from the visibility of the code. b) Usability testing This test centered on various factors. The aspects of the website that affect the user's experience were examined, such as: The level of ease of navigating through the website. Actions available to the user at a glance. The look and the feel of the website and its consistence from one page to another, including font sizes and colors? The above factors are depicted in the test results table below. c) HTML verification. The testing of the hypertext language used was done using the World Wide Web Consortium (http://www.w3.org) HTML specification and was achieved using the World Wide Web Consortium's free HTML Validation Service (http://validator.w3.org). 1. Test Item Score 2. Environment testing Abstraction achieved 3. Usability Testing - Uniformity of font sizes and color - Navigation Achieved User navigation Normal 4. HTML Validation 3 Errors found and Corrected Bibliography Web Foundation , 2014, “About: History of the Web” http://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/ Retrieved August 14th 2014. Tim Berners-Lee & HarperCollins, 2000.”Weaving the Web,” Quittner, Joshua (29 March 1999). "Tim Berners Lee – Time 100 People of the Century". Time Magazine. "He wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century.” Read More