Evolution of Web Development

“Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries."

Neville Brody

The web today is a growing universe of interlinked web pages and web apps, teeming with videos, photos, and interactive content. What the average user doesn't see is the interplay of web technologies and browsers that makes all this possible.

Over time web technologies have evolved to give web developers the ability to create new generations of useful and immersive web experiences. Today's web is a result of the ongoing efforts of an open web community that helps define these web technologies, like HTML5, CSS3 and WebGL and ensure that they're supported in all web browsers.

The world first website was published in 1990. There were nothing much except a few texts and links. However, at that time the available public web browser was not graphical but text only call “line-mode” browser.

The first graphical browser, Mosaic came in existence in 1993, which was done by MTV. And after that "Netscape" was launched in 1994 and so on.

Web design styles have changed with remarkable speed compared with their bricks and mortar cousins. The first website contained only text with hyperlinks explaining what the web was, how to use it, and basic set-up instructions. From those early days to the present, web design has taken a long and winding journey.

In the beginning

In the early 1990s, we welcomed the first publishing language of the Web: Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML.

But the language – used to share text-only pages via a simple browser – was limiting. Many early web sites were basic, using vertically structured, text-heavy pages with few graphics. People quickly adapted to vertically scrolling text and eye-catching blue underlined hypertext to navigate the virtual Web space

The Vintage Web

The idea of the internet had existed in some form for at least a half a century before it finally became a common household utility in the 1990s. Conceived in the 1980s, the World Wide Web gained significant traction with the introduction of the Mosaic browser in 1993.

With the arrival of Mosaic Browser, World Wide Web (WWW), started to receive a warm reception. Businesses discovered the commercial potential associated with the web.

A fellow at CERN Laboratory in Europe, Tim Berners-Lee sketched out his perception of a collaborative platform for the researchers coming from different corners of the globe in 1989. This very idea gave birth to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in the year of 1990. The interest in technology promptly bumped up and the first commercial web page started to pop up by the mid-1990s.

With the increasing use of the internet and World Wide Web, user behavior took a dramatic turn. From a hardcore academic nature, the internet started to experience an involvement of non-tech individuals. This involvement shook the whole industry and modified the definition of popular websites and the content in demand.

Crucial Milestones in Web Development(Years of Development)

Following are the few crucial milestones in Web Development: -

1994

The invention of at (@) sign created a sheer muddle among the newscasters.

1995

Windows 95 and Internet Explorer were launched by Microsoft.

1996

Hotmail was launched as the first webmail.

1997

GoDaddy was launched with the name – Jomax Technologies.

Google was registered as a domain.

2000

Dotcom boom hit the highest point.

2001

The world experienced Drupal for the first time: Drupal 1.0 was launched.

2003

WordPress blog publishing system was launched.

2004

The majority of developments were done via FTP on the live servers but there was a huge demand for website management tools.

Firefox 1.0 was launched by Firefox.

2005

YouTube was released on Valentine’s Day.

Popular community site Reddit was founded.

2007

MAMP and other local development tools were launched during this period.

2008

HTML5 came into existence.

2009

Cloud Computing came into reality and github.com was publicized.

2010

People got more well-known to DevOps.

Quora was launched by ex-Facebook workers

2018

1.8 billion+ websites are running smoothly. Various state-of-the-art technologies have come into play such as AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), AI (Artificial Intelligence) and much more.

CURRENT WEB DESIGN

Unlike the years before, right now web developers and web designers have a clearer picture on the potential of use that the internet has. With the rise of the Internet of things as well as many other gadgets of different sizes which can connect to the internet, new design perspectives have come into play.

So, to solve the problem of fixed size webpages, and to ensure that as many devices are adaptable as possible, the idea of “one web” comes into light. This is where adaptive design and responsive features are embedded in the CSS code. This allows the website or web application to automatically reorganize its structure and visual presentation while ensuring the content is fully displayed. This has been enhanced by the introduction of HTML5 and CSS3 in 2014, which have made it possible for modern web applications to work under the “one web” concept.

The future…

The history of Web is relatively short, yet it has gone through a succession of renaissances in a short period of time.

Previously, technology drove advances in web design. But I believe we are at a point where web design is no longer limited by technology. Virtually, we can do pretty much everything we might want to do on the Web.

The future of web design is no longer about what we can do, but rather about what we should do. That means being considerate about how design can affect the people who use it, and designing websites that result in positive experiences for users.

Conclusion

Since the advent of the Mosaic browser and the subsequent rise of the web interface, internet technology has thrived through at least two major economic bubble bursts – in 2001 and in 2008. The latter collapse, while concurrent with the larger housing crisis, also marked the age of a new killer app – the mobile operating system. And in the years since then, the web page has gradually changed shape to accommodate its various new contexts. Now, the mobile app could eventually even displace the web page as we know it. But it still derives much of its basic properties from design concepts innovated through the discipline of web development.

We will discuss more towards history of evolution of Internet in our next blog.