Raz Systems Tech Blog

Web design is the skill of creating presentations of content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) that is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, by way of a Web browser or other Web-enabled software like Internet television clients, microblogging clients and RSS readers.

The process of designing Web pages, Web sites, Web applications or multimedia for the Web may utilize multiple disciplines, such as animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design, human-computer interaction, information architecture, interaction design, marketing, photography, search engine optimization and typography.

* Markup languages (such as HTML, XHTML and XML)
* Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)
* Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript)
* Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP)
* Database technologies (such as MySQL and PostgreSQL)
* Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and Silverlight)

Web pages and Web sites can be static pages, or can be programmed to be dynamic pages that automatically adapt content or visual appearance depending on a variety of factors, such as input from the end-user, input from the Webmaster or changes in the computing environment (such as the site’s associated database having been modified).

With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.

Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. The term was coined in the year 2001 when the Agile Manifesto was formulated.

Agile methods generally promote a disciplined project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, a leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability, a set of engineering best practices that allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals. Conceptual foundations of this framework are found in modern approaches to operations management and analysis, such as lean manufacturing, soft systems methodology, speech act theory (network of conversations approach), and Six Sigma.

Some of the principles behind the Agile Manifesto are:

• Customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software
• Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Working software is the principal measure of progress
• Even late changes in requirements are welcomed (this does not mean code & run. Instead removing an existing feature or moving a deadline forward to accommodate late/unplanned feature requests)
• Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (Co-location)
• Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
• Simplicity
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

A database is an integrated collection of logically related records or files which consolidates records into a common pool of data records that provides data for many applications. A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated.

Database Management System
A Database Management System (DBMS) is software that organizes the storage of data. It controls the creation, maintenance, and the use of the database tables of an organization and its end users. It allows organizations to place control of organizationwide database development in the hands of Database Administrators (DBAs) and other specialist. In large systems, a DBMS allows users and other software to store and retrieve data in a structured way.

Database management systems are categorized according to the database model that they support, such as the network model or relational model. The model tends to determine the query languages that are available to access the database. One commonly used query language is SQL, although SQL syntax and function can vary from one DBMS to another. A great deal of the internal engineering of a DBMS, is independent of the data model, and is concerned with managing factors such as performance, concurrency, integrity, and recovery from hardware failures. In these areas there are large differences between products.

A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) implements the features of the relational model. In this context, Date’s “Information Principle” states: “the entire information content of the database is represented in one and only one way. Namely as explicit values in column positions (attributes) and rows in relations (tuples). Therefore, there are no explicit pointers between related tables.”