Do you want to create or update your website? To do this, should we, like 50 % business sites, use a WordPress or Drupal CMS? Or develop your custom site? From development languages to database management, we explain how to carry out your project with the web technologies best suited to your needs.
Web technologies are constantly evolving. Some disappear to make way for others. However, there are safe values. This is the case with PHP. Used by 76.7 % websites worldwide, according to W3Techs, this language is also the basis of the most popular CMS like WordPress and Drupal.
In France, more than one in two business sites uses one of these two content management systems, according to a survey by the web agency Kernix conducted in 2023 among 800,000 companies. Contrary to popular belief, CMS are of interest to microenterprises and SMEs as well as large CAC40 groups.
Choosing a development technology will impact many aspects of your site or web application project. Features, performance, security, and development and maintenance costs depend on it.
Getting started: web standards
A web development technology, also called a technology stack, is made up of front end and back end languages, a database management system (DBMS) and the entire ecosystem that supports them. surrounds (libraries, APIs, frameworks, user interfaces, etc.). But before even tackling these questions when embarking on a project, the most important thing is to start by familiarizing yourself with the web environment. And, more specifically, web standards.
We have, in fact, every interest in ruling out proprietary technologies in favor of web standards. Otherwise, there is a risk of falling into the trap of browsers that do not support all extensions... These standards are defined by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), the international body whose primary objective is to achieve this. Browsers that respect standards and interoperability comply with its recommendations.
HTTP, the basic protocol
Among these standardized technologies: communication protocols between the client and the server, including Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Having a basic knowledge of how this works is essential for development. This is why it is said that the first “language” to master, or at least to understand, is HTTP.
The protocol has evolved a lot since 1997 and HTTP/1. In 2015, HTTP/2 brought multiplexing of requests to speed up the loading of web pages. And since all sites are now secured using TLS (HTTPS), this results in additional checks and loading time. Which led to the creation of HTTP/3 in 2018 to further improve the loading speed of secure pages. It is therefore better to check that your web server supports HTTP/3, and failing that HTTP/2!
Client side (front end): HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the 3 standards
This “public” part of the exchange between the client and the server is based on three standard languages:
- HTML, a markup language. It is used to structure the content of a web page (define a title, a paragraph, images/video, links, etc.)
- CSS, a style sheet language. It allows you to format the web page
- JavaScript, the programming language for web interfaces which will notably add interactivity.
In order to adapt your page to all media (smartphone, tablet, large screen, audio navigation system, etc.), it is important to properly separate the content from its presentation. For example, for a screen reader, we will use a tag <strong> in HTML to emphasize importance without visual connotation, and in CSS to skillfully decorate them.
On the client side, the good reflex of the web developer is to use the debugger or the browser development tool. This is to check what was transferred in HTTP, the source code of the page, network performance, style sheets, etc. and advance the JavaScript programs step by step.
On the server side (back end) : PHP is essential
On the server side, however, we have the choice of weapons! Since it is not necessary to use a standardized web language to develop the application, the range of programming languages is vast… but the three favorites of developers at the moment are PHP, Java and Python. It's all a matter of preference on the part of the developer(s). Knowing that the performance requirements and the technical environment of the project can equally influence the choice of language.
For exemple, PHP is very popular for web development. Particularly because of the many open source CMS in PHP available such as WordPress or Drupal. Highly sought after for its simplicity, the CMS solution makes it possible to produce content without having significant development skills. It will then be enough to structure your pages in HTML… or even use templates.
Frameworks and databases
It is of course possible to ensure the entire development of the project to obtain something more sophisticated, personalized and adapted to specific needs. We will then go through back end development frameworks. Here again, each language offers a wide range of frameworks, but the most used today still remain:
It's all a matter of developer preference (and experience). The most important thing is to make sure you choose a language and its associated framework that keep up with market developments.
Finally, these systems are going to need a database. And there is no shortage of options there either. There are two main families of DBMS: SQL (Structured Query Language) and NoSQL databases (to be understood not as “ no SQL” but rather “ not only SQL). SQL databases are very widespread, but in recent years we have seen a movement towards NoSQL. Another selection criterion can also be a preference between (or a necessity for) a licensed and paid solution (Oracle, SQL server) and an open source relational solution (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB) or NoSQL (MongoDB, Cassandra).
