Web Technologies

The World Wide Web is powered by a plethora technologies that provide developers with much needed features that allow them to create unique experiences for their users. Below you may find details for some of them.

JavaScript

A high-level, interpreted programming language primarily used in web development to enhance interactivity and provide rich web content. It enables features such as form validation, interactive maps, and dynamic changes to HTML and CSS. JavaScript is client-side, meaning it runs on the user's web browser without the need for server interaction, allowing for faster response and reduced server load. Despite sharing part of its name with Java, JavaScript is distinct and not directly related to Java.

React

A web library developed by Facebook to provide more dynamic client-side interactions for the web version of their platform. React is a "reactive" web library that responds to user actions, by rendering new elements, mutating data or fetching new ones. You can read more here.

React Native

A web/mobile hybrid library developed by Facebook, that allows devs to create mobile apps using React and providing superior performance compared to other hybrid technologies, since all components created by React Native are translated to native device components and are not rendered in a WebView. You can read more here.

WebView

A term used to describe a browser instance that opens inside a native mobile application. In Android this browser is usually a chrome instance specifically optimized for running inside other apps and is different from the regular browser you use to navigate the web. In iOS it's a browser similar to Safari, but again different from the one that you use for your web browsing. WebViews are used to either open app-controlled browser instances or to render the actual application itself, when it has been developed with hybrid technologies like Ionic, which render all components into regular HTML.

Angular

A web app framework developed by Google, that is based on the subscriber/observer pattern another reactive mechanism. The first version of Angular was published in 2010 and is referred to as AngularJS, while Angular is the most recent iteration of the framework, published in 2016 as Angular 2.0 which is, for all intents and purposes, a complete rewrite of the original framework and the only similarities they share are the name. You can read more here.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS is a stylesheet language used for describing the look and formatting of a document written in HTML or XML. It provides the means to describe colors, fonts, layout, and other aspects of document presentation. CSS separates document content (written in HTML or another markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts. This separation improves content accessibility and provides more flexibility and control in the specification of presentational characteristics.

CSS-in-JS

CSS-in-JS is a pattern where CSS is composed using JavaScript instead of defined in external files. CSS-in-JS can refer to any approach that involves writing CSS with JavaScript, but in most cases, it refers to libraries that provide APIs for generating and injecting styles into the DOM. Some examples include styled-components, Emotion, and JSS. CSS-in-JS allows for scoped and dynamically generated CSS, where you can use JavaScript to create styles that are injected into the DOM as required. It can also support the use of component state and props to modify styles, which is particularly useful when working with component-based libraries or frameworks like React.

JSX (JavaScript XML)

JSX is a syntax extension for JavaScript that is primarily used in conjunction with React to describe what the UI should look like. It resembles HTML in its syntax but it is processed into JavaScript function calls rather than being actual markup. With JSX, HTML-like code exists along with JavaScript/React code. This syntax is transformed at build time to React.createElement() calls. One of the key benefits of JSX is the ability to embed JavaScript expressions within your "markup" (like variables, functions, or any other valid JavaScript), providing greater flexibility in constructing complex UIs.