What is a web framework

How does the meaning of the term changes when we apply it to technology? Actually, it does not radically transform. In the technological glossary, a web framework is defined as an environment within which new applications and websites are created. Frameworks have been designed to support developers in projects creating process and more specifically to ease the code writing process.

When developers built websites, they often started from drafts. This, in a way, is a mistake, because if you start from the scratch you have to face repetitive problems which are time consuming. Moreover, lots of websites have many features in common, so to rewrite everything all over again is a waste of time. And as time in developers life is the main valuable thing, someone thought about ready-to-use structures which enable us to get rid of these troubles, frameworks.

Based onDRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) coding methodology, they are designed to manage repetitive and basic tasks, in order to help developers to accelerate the website creation process. While browsing through blogs and web pages, you'll find out that there is much confusion about this topic. People often confuse frameworks with libraries, and they're not. Frameworks are software, based on a programming language which offers a number of tools for CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update and Delete) such as code libraries, compilers, debuggers, tools sets etc. with the purpose of providing a complete solution.

Further to clarify more on this, I'll write down the distinguishing features of Frameworks to show you why they differ from libraries. First and foremost, frameworks cut down the stress of carrying out a complex project because they dictate the overall flow of control. And they have adefault behaviour, which is supposed to help developers in gaining success. It's easy to understand that they follow precise rules if we take into account that these platforms set an environment. Moreover, these structures are implementable. Do you need to add specific functionalities? Yes, you can do it too. You can extend or specialize your platform just by adding some specific code. When you modify it keep in mind this important rule, add your own code but don't change the existing code.

Like other structures, frameworks consist of hot and frozen spots. While the former define the overall architecture (in other words the basic components and how they relate with each other), the latter act as manipulable points of interaction that developers can employ to add their own code.

As framework’s main goal is to ease developers workload, they also tend to promote the reuse of code. This is an authentic manna because it implies that when you have to design a specific item for the project you're working on, you'll write the specific application code only once. Even though you have to use this object many times within the project. Modularity is a direct consequence of the architecture model. Most of the frameworks in fact, adopt the MCV (model-control-viewer) architectural pattern (or variant of it) and thus keep separated the logical structure from the user interface.

Design process is easy to manage through frameworks too. Many of them, de facto, provide atemplate systemor facilitate the uploading of your own templating system. You'll save time because thanks to this feature the common chunks of HTML that nearly ever change, such as the header and footer of your project, need to be written only once.

I explained a bit above on why to adopt Framework is fruitful but let's go through other reasons too. Think about this situation, your customer asks for a very complex project and, to accomplish it, you need to work in team. Sure, if you choose to employ one of these platforms, you'll need some time to train and to learn how it works. But after studying, all of the team members will be able to work independently. Moreover, to adopt a framework implies to develop according to its rules, so you'll be prevented from any mess up! Furthermore, once you gained the necessary competences, you'll be able to develop always more complex projects in a small amount of time.