How Do Frameworks Help Web Developers?

In 2022, even though a statement “the popularity of web development services has skyrocketed” can bend someone’s ear, it doesn’t stop people from trying to build their own website or app. And odds are these folks jump on this bandwagon with some help from web development frameworks (WDFs) or application frameworks. Depending on the project.

If you look into it, you’ll find a bunch of insanely popular frameworks out there like Laravel, Rails (Ruby), React, or Django (Python). Why are they popular? Simply because frameworks are very comprehensive. And web developers also say that frameworks can do almost anything under the sun. Is it actually true? Let’s find out!

Read this blog post for we’ll talk about different frameworks and why/how they’re important.

What’s the purpose of frameworks?

Frameworks pursue the same concept as any conventional library – to collect & store reusable code. The purpose is to speed up the development process and reduce an amount of repetitive/redundant work. With a framework, an app can be organized according to that specific framework. 

Frameworks can be either built from scratch or use pre-built frameworks created by someone else. As a matter of fact, every programming language has a framework. Therefore, what particular framework you choose to work with will be pretty much determined by the programming language picked for the project. Other things to consider are: scale of an app, devs’ tech skills/competence, and purpose of an app/website.

Frameworks make app/website development much more comprehensive because they cover such important aspects like databases, authentication, views, routing, etc. Frameworks also assist by providing and imposing an architectural pattern. They can structure everything that has been designed so far in order to achieve efficient practices and secured code.

In fact, frameworks become really important if you have a whole team of specialists 

working on a larger app. Let’s say, you’ve got 15 people working on the same code. Obviously, it helps a lot if everybody is on the same page and approaches things the same way. Got over 100 people on the team? Then it becomes essential. 

In other words, frameworks will keep you from shooting yourself in the foot in case you run into a vast variety of unexpected errors.

How exactly are frameworks helpful?

If you’re building an app (or website) using WDFs, in this case other web devs who you may approach will instantly understand and figure out the broad contours of your app/website. In other words, this WDF would make it much easier for devs to figure out what/where your code lives, what it does, etc. So, frameworks become very handy in case you fell flat on your face at some point of the web development process. And you need some help from experienced web developers who’d complete your project and wrap it up successfully.

With frameworks, developers are fully ensured that whatever happened under the hood was tested. Thus, everything they’ve built is reliable. Basically, frameworks eliminate the necessity to reinvent the wheel every single time a new project starts. A fair amount of work has already been done and preserved in frameworks by other devs. Plus, code stays consistent and cross-platform compatibility is also ensured. Good deal!

When it comes down to front-end development, frameworks come in handy whenever there’s a need to speed up interaction with DOM and bring up reactive data changes. That’s where you use frameworks like React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, Inferno, Moon, etc. And since application frameworks is not a recently emerged idea, there’re a whole bunch of older frameworks still used effectively for app development, such as SmallTalk, MacApp, Struts (for JS apps), etc.

As for application frameworks, they’re designed to deliver a fundamental structure and support for apps. Such frameworks provide skeletal support and that is one of the main reasons why they work so effectively. Again, the main goal is to minimize all final issues that usually occur along the line of building an app. Basically, developers use code that can be shared across app’s modules to eliminate any problems.  

Some of the frameworks’ pros & trade-offs 

Most notable advantages of WDFs from the web devs’ point of view:

• Highly Efficient
• Provide a great level of support
• Guarantee a good level of security
• Include an integration feature

By the term “open source” means cost efficiency for both: web developers and clients. In fact, open source doesn’t mean poor quality just because most of such WDFs are literally open and free for use by anybody who wants to utilize them.

Code efficiency is another huge advantage according to devs opinion since there is no need to do lots of repetitive work while writing repetitive code. Saves time and allows building stuff much faster.  

Another great thing about frameworks is that most of them have dedicated support teams. Also, frameworks provide some advanced security features. So, in case any security issues occur, you may just kick back and relax since everything will be taken care of by an expert team.

Another frameworks’ useful feature can be an integration feature which allows developers to link other tools like databases, for instance.

Some main trade-offs devs often note about frameworks:

• Constrained in terms of adding modifications
• Restrictive in terms of coding paradigms
• Cause frustration
• Some are based on tough-to-learn programming languages

But in reality, developers can decide for themselves whether they want to work with frameworks or not. And the decision depends on his own coding preferences.

What are the most useful frameworks in 2022?

Our top pick of front-end frameworks:

Angular: a JS-based open-source framework first launched back in 2009 but is still very popular within a large community of people who bring up challenges experienced in SPAs development. The main purpose of Angular is to inject required components into web pages turning them into dynamic pages. Whenever users navigate to URLs, Angular injects the required components into a web page instead of refreshing this page and it reuses components without changing or reducing the loading time. Angular is also often used for prototyping and for core development.

Ember: an open-source JS-based framework used for developing those kinds of apps that require rich in-app interactions and incorporate complex functionality. Ember is well liked by developers since it works great for developing scalable SPAs. Ember contributes to a productive app development with things like an adapter for viewing & inspecting app’s state and Ember CLI tool (command-line tool) which handles nearly all of the setup for a new app. What else is great about Ember? It provides handlebars templates that update dynamically without the need for DOM manipulation code or 2-way data binding.

Flutter: a Google’s open-source UI kit which is built in Google’s own programming language called “Dart”. Flutter helps to build apps with creative designs & great visuals. Also, the greatest thing about Flutter is in its ability to reduce the volume of the required code (if compared to other frameworks).

React: a JS library for developing user interfaces, SPAs or mobile apps. According to Stack Overflow, React.js has been among the leaders of devs’ best picks.

Vue: a progressive JS framework handy for creating user interfaces & SPAs. Vue is also awesome for programming widgets or creating web components. Vue has a great ability to organize code. Bingo! No wonder why it is still one of the most wanted frameworks in 2022. 

Our top pick of back-end frameworks:

Django: an open-source (Python-based) that is supported by the Django software foundation. The main purpose is to turn developing complex & database-driven websites into something that is less of a hassle. With Django, your model system will interrelate with databases without using too much SQL language, if any at all. And this is definitely a huge advantage for programmers. 

Django provides a set of well-tested components that cover common use cases like user authentication, or fetching records from a database. And then converting them into objects. Django implicitly recommends certain ways of creating homepages, user detail pages, etc. This framework can prevent code from being unruly (often the case with PHP) with the best-practiced constraints.

Express.js: was designed to be a Node’s based server-side framework. The 3 distinct features of Express that are appreciated by most web developers: first, it helps organize the app’s routing; second, helps utilize templating solutions effectively with almost minimal effort; third, Express works very well for code organizing.

Ruby on Rails (often just called “Rails”): written in Ruby and gives lots of reusable pieces to build a website with or build an application much faster and more easily. Furthermore, these “pieces” have been already tested very thoroughly. That’s one of the reasons why this framework is great for startups and prototyping. The main benefits of working with RoR are: excellent for speeding up the development process, requires easy maintenance, loads of community developed libraries (called gems), provides easy deployment, and always provides enough resources for troubleshooting.

Spring: Spring’s core features can be utilized by any app built in Java. Makes it perfect for using it across different projects and for different purposes. 

Laravel: an open-source web framework (PHP-based) with the model–view–controller pattern. Laravel can be more dynamic when it comes to writing complex SQL queries. So, use Laravel if your future website will likely rely on complex sets of SQL queries and will require some serious ORM (works great in this particular case).

CodeIgniter: a powerful PHP-based framework with a smart & elegant toolkit which works effectively for developing full-featured apps.

Node.js: a platform built on Chrome’s JS run time. Node is effective for creating scalable network apps. And it is perfect for data-intensive apps. Plus, it earned a reputation of being a fantastic framework for building apps that require a persistent connection. Node.js works well for real-time systems like Socket.IO. Want to get an idea of what the code looks like? Just find a relatively complicated piece of client-side code with nested callbacks and look it up.

Bottom-line

Again, there is no such a thing as the “best” web framework because each one of them can serve different purposes. Some frameworks do a better job for smaller projects. While others would work more efficiently on a larger scale.  Plus, micro-frameworks like Slim or Lumen (PHP) are also popular because of their ability to build a core of what’s needed. 

Some frameworks are more suited for simpler apps, while the others are incredible for building complex apps. So, that’s why it’s important to have some well-thought-out evaluation of each individual project first and then think about coming up with any final decision.

Can’t decide on a framework? Dive into the code behind the framework with Grinfer! You can head out to Grinfer today and learn more about WDFs, application frameworks, and all the ins and outs of web development. A huge library of online courses right at your fingertips with just a single subscription!