In the past, it was custom websites all the way. You had to build everything from scratch before you had a fully functional site. You needed strong HTML and CSS skills if you were a web designer and if you were a web programmer you needed strong skills in server-side scripting, client-side scripting, and database development. All this increased the schedule for the completion of projects. Over time, industry professionals have continued to develop technologies to overcome these drawbacks.
Gone are the days when you had to build a website from scratch using HTML and other tools. This is because there are now modern ready-to-use tools that can do 50% or even more of the work for you while you do the rest. This has made it possible to shorten the terms of work and increase the efficiency of web developers. Let’s take a look at some of these tools.
1. Templates
A template contains a layout for a website along with formatting features that give it a particular appearance through the accompanying CSS. What you need to do is modify it to suit your purpose by adding your content in the provided placeholders and adjusting the relevant areas in the CSS file and your website is good to go.
2. Content Management System (CMS)
Customers now want to be able to change the content on their website without having to call the developer’s service to avoid paying the service fee. There are now modern CMS packages that will allow you to create a complete site with the CMS installation. Some examples are Joomla, WordPress and Drupal Content Management Systems. Once you can configure the tool and have acquired the necessary skill to use it, you can start designing web pages without in-depth knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. Because they are CMS, it is easy for the user to add/modify content independently. These examples are generic in nature. There are some CMS that are dedicated in nature. For example, eCommerce CMS. These modern tools would allow you to create a buying and selling platform without having strong programming skills and database object development skills. A good number of them are available. They are osCommerce, Prestashop, Magento, Zen Cart, shopify, etc.
Website development technology is very dynamic. New and better tools are being developed all the time and existing ones are continually improved with new versions. Better methods are continually being developed. For example, web pages today are not designed with tables to align page objects when creating page layouts. Instead, HTML tags such as the DIV tag and others are used to make the site search engine friendly. Also, AJAX is used a lot these days to minimize reconnections to the database in multi-tier applications.
As a web developer, this means you always have to keep an eye on current industry trends to stay relevant. However, despite the availability of these out-of-the-box development tools, a web developer should also strive to create custom websites because many jobs are still of the custom type and the ability to perform those jobs successfully is a demonstration of your strength and versatility. Also, the ability to create sites from scratch would allow you to develop the ability to create your own CMS templates and packages.
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