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Overview
Behind every web property, behind every business initiative on the web, there are resourceful people working hard to make a web site look good, function well, and, most importantly, fulfill a business goal. These articles focus on these people and the tools and processes that they use. Those individuals have widely divergent skill sets; they must coordinate across departments, endure extreme time pressure, toil on high-visibility projects, and collaborate across time zones and geography. Yet they work tirelessly to harness the opportunity offered by the Internet age. They make it all happen. They are the heroes of our story.
The Internet age owes itself to the confluence of technological and social forces that drive communication and interaction between organizations and people from around the globe. As the modern-day "killer application," the web browser takes its place alongside the newspaper, radio, telephone, and television as a fundamental conduit for communication. The vast number of online destinations outstrips the ability of any one person to view them all, which forces web operators to compete fiercely for each person's capricious attention: their "eyeballs." The Internet's universal connectivity amplifies the power of the browser, supplying the vast number of eyeballs that power the creation of the myriad of web properties to which we've become accustomed. More properties attract more eyeballs, which justifies greater investment in network connectivity and further justifies the creation of diverse web properties. This cycle reinforces itself. Greater investment attracts more eyeballs, which justifies more investment. This is an example of the "network effect." It is not a fad.
Hardly anything about web properties stays the same. Once upon a time, brochure-ware ruled the day. Then personalization and dynamic web sites supplanted so-called static web sites. Inevitably, this, too, will be replaced by a different, better technological solution. When online stores emerged on the Internet landscape, it was a novelty to place an order via the Internet. Customers gained the advantage of accessing product information online, bypassing the delay of mailing a catalog order form. But with more entrants in the increasingly crowded arena, consumers have come to expect more: online product availability status, improved search and comparison, order status tracking, and so forth. The future promises continued innovation. Entire companies have rebranded themselves as "e-companies" to gain customer mind share in the Internet space.
Behind the scenes, web server software has matured. Static HTML and CGI-based sites have been gradually replaced with application servers from vendors that didn't even exist a few years ago. Application servers have gained increasing acceptance because they offer improved ability to build personalized web sites, more scalability, and greater ability to program the "business logic" that drives a modern web site. Server hardware has improved. Operating systems have evolved. Teams are larger, and skills have become more specialized. Departments have expanded, and operations have spread over the country and around the world. Web initiatives have expanded in scope, while implementation schedules have shortened.
Inside each web property lies the world of web development. It is difficult work, involving many contributors working under pressure, with short deadlines. In large measure, web development groups face difficulties because conventional rules no longer apply. They operate under a new set of rules, imposed on them from their environment. A group attempting to follow rules and behaviors that worked in the past inevitably stumbles. The purpose of these articles is to explain the rules and to help avoid the stumbles.