When selecting new applications, Web developers are most
concerned with increasing productivity, decreasing development time and
easing the software update process, according to a survey released Monday.
International Data Corp. (IDC) based its
“Web Application Developer Perspectives” white paper on a survey
of more than 500 Web developers commissioned by Allaire Corp.
The report says productivity is more important to developers than
application scalability. IDC also predicted the market for what it termed
rapid application development tools will soon be one of the fastest growing
software segments.
The survey found that 85 percent of Web applications are built using a
page and script development model.
“Although there has been much emphasis on scalability of applications over
the past year or two, it is evident that increasing
productivity and getting applications deployed more rapidly is what’s
foremost on the minds of Web developers,” said Steve McClure, director of
IDC’s Internet tools program.
“Moreover, the data indicates that vendor size and market share
aren’t important criteria when they’re selecting Web application
development tools.”
Among the other developer preferences listed in the survey were:
- A total of 61.8 percent of Web developers prefer coding HTML directly
with an editor to using a WYSIWYG environment to generate HTML
- Web developers prefer a development environment that is page oriented
and uses tag-based markup languages
- Most respondents believed Web application development
approaches that used pages with embedded scripts were easier to use,
faster, more portable and less risky
- Most surveyed said pages with embedded scripts were comparable
or better than 3GL approaches in terms of performance and scalability
“Given both the burgeoning use of the World Wide Web and the dearth of
Web-enabled application solutions, the importance
of Web application development activities and supporting tools increases
significantly,” McClure says.
Other survey results included:
- Seventy-eight percent use site design and management tools, a figure
expected to increase to 91.6 percent by 1999
- Seventy-six percent of respondents’ Web applications are considered
either business critical or mission critical
- Usage of Web application development environments, currently at 87.3
percent, will increase to 93.1 percent by 1999;
- Use of database servers will rise to 96 percent next year from 93
percent currently.
