How the technology we use to build the Web shapes the web. A look at the history, present, and future of the programming languages and tools used in web development, and how they've impacted the culture of the Web.

1. Mind the Tools
HOW THE TECHNOLOGY WE USE TO BUILD THE WEB
SHAPES THE WEB
Alex Payne
Edge of the Web 2009 – Perth, Australia
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2. Introduction
❖ Working on Twitter since
January, 2007.
❖ Working on the Web since age
12 (1995).
❖ A bit nuts about programming
languages.
❖ Co-author of Programming Scala
from O’Reilly (October, 2009).

4. How does language
shape what we do?

5. “That’s demented!”

6. Agenda
i. A little history.
ii. A tour of the present.
iii. Gazing into the future.
iv. How languages and tools shaped the web.

7. A Brief History
Programming Languages
of the Web

8. In The Beginning...
❖ HTML born in 1990-91.
❖ First proper public specification of HTML arrives in
1993.
❖ NCSA Mosaic 1.0 released in April, 1993, just as CERN
announces that the Web will be free and open.
❖ CGI standard emerges in 1993, enabling the earliest web
applications.

10. The CGI Era
❖ 1993 - 1997.
❖ Most common languages for CGI scripts:
❖ C
❖ Perl
❖ Reduces data to key-value pairs.
❖ The primordial soup of web applications.

12. The Applet Era
❖ 1995 - 1997.
❖ A showcase for the Java language.
❖ The first “dynamic” content on the Web.
❖ Solid security model, impressive demos, but never really
took hold.
❖ Killed by Microsoft’s unbundling and the rise of Flash
in the early naughts.

15. The Flash Era
❖ 1998 - present
❖ Started out as simply a solution for vector-based
animation.
❖ For a while, a competitor to “DHTML”.
❖ Now used mostly for delivering video and games.
❖ Deep concern in the Web standards and FOSS
communities about its use.

16. The JavaScript Era
❖ 1998 - present.
❖ From animations and client-side form validations to
web application greatness.
❖ Much maligned, must misunderstood.
❖ Now one of the most widely-deployed languages in
existence.

18. The PHP Era
❖ 1998 - 2005
❖ The first programming language built explicitly for web
development.
❖ Decent performance, fast development cycle.
❖ Encourages poor programming practices.
❖ Also spawned ASP.

19. The LAMP Era
❖ 2001 - 2007
❖ Python catches up to PHP.
❖ Perl is still around.
❖ Generic interfaces like FCGI enable a “right tool for
the job” mentality.
❖ Open source web servers and databases have matured.

20. The Age of Frameworks
❖ 2005 - present.
❖ Ruby on Rails, Django, and many copycats.
❖ Codifying best practices, treating web application
development like “real” software development.
❖ Increased productivity, but at the cost of vendor
dependency.

21. Timeline
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
CGI (Perl, C)
1993 – 1997
JavaScript
1998 – 2009
frameworks (Rails, Django, et. al.)
2005 – 2009
Flash (ActionScript)
1998 – 2009
The Web opens up
1993
Applets (Java)
1995 – 1997
HTML born
1990 – 1991
PHP
1998 – 2005
LAMP (Python, PHP, Perl)
2001 – 2007
VRML
1995 – 1997

22. Charted Territory
Typing Object Model Compilation
Perl
Python
PHP
Ruby
JavaScript
ActionScript
Java
dynamic class-based interpreted
dynamic class-based interpreted
dynamic class-based interpreted
dynamic class-based interpreted
dynamic prototype-based interpreted
static prototype-based compiled
static class-based compiled

23. Lessons of History
❖ Dynamic, interpreted languages have been
dominant on the Web.
❖ Languages built exclusively for the Web face
tough criticism (PHP, JavaScript).
❖ No one technology lasts forever – and that’s a good
thing.

24. The Present

25. Frameworks Everywhere
❖ Application frameworks: Rails, Django.
❖ JavaScript frameworks: jQuery, YUI.
❖ CSS frameworks: Blueprint, Baseline.
❖ Typography frameworks (?!): TypeKit, sIFR.

26. APIs Everywhere
❖ Not just for mashups anymore.
❖ Eat your own dog food: API as systems architecture.
❖ Letting data escape the browser model.

27. JavaScript Everywhere
❖ Use the same language, front-to-back.
❖ Perfect for AJAX-heavy applications.
❖ JSON as universal object format.
❖ A bit untested, but AppJet and others are paving the
way.

28. Code Generation
❖ Use the same language for everything, but compile
down to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
❖ Google Web Toolkit (GWT).
❖ Popular in the Ruby and functional language
communities.

29. Refining Standards
❖ HTML 5, JavaScript 1.9
❖ new challenges:
❖ mobile
❖ geolocation
❖ heavyweight web applications (GMail, etc.)
❖ old and difficult challenges:
❖ internationalization
❖ accessibility

30. The Web Outside The Browser
❖ Taking web development to
other realms:
❖ the desktop (AIR, Titanium)
❖ mobile (Palm webOS)
❖ Why build your own
development model?

31. The Future

32. The Post-Framework Era
❖ Message queues connecting heterogeneous components.
❖ Trickle-down SOA.
❖ Back to LAMP, only language doesn’t matter this time.
❖ And, yes, finally, the Cloud.

33. The Native Era
❖ Google Native Client.
❖ Getting video out of Flash.
❖ Mobile apps.

34. The Functional Era
❖ Functional languages fit the Web development model.
❖ It’s taken time for the old FP languages (Lisp, Haskell,
OCaml) to build up Web tooling.
❖ Newer functional languages (Scala, Clojure) are already
productive and competitive for Web work.
❖ Even newer FP languages are aimed squarely at the Web
(Arc, Ur).

35. How Does All This Shape The Web?

36. Dynamism.

37. Tension.

38. Heterogeneity.

39. Evolution.

40. Tools matter.
Language matters.

41. Thank you!
Questions?
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