Photo: Justin Gaurav Murgai via Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phoenixation/2998955260/
Quick application
development with
web frameworks
Aaron Sumner
University of Kansas
Center for Research on Learning

Overview:
•What’s a web application
framework?
•Why use one?
•A quick demo
•Nothing (too) technical!

A little about me:
• 15 years experience
developing web apps at KU,
KU Med, U. of Washington
• Perl, AppleScript, a little
Java, PHP, VBscript, Ruby
• Switched to frameworks in
2005

Contact
information:
@ruralocity
asumner@ku.edu

“A web application framework is a software
framework that is designed to support the
development of dynamic websites, Web
applications and Web services.
Source: Wikipedia

“The framework aims to alleviate the overhead
associated with common activities performed in
Web development.
Source: Wikipedia

“For example, many frameworks provide
libraries for database access, templating
frameworks and session management, and often
promote code reuse.”
Source: Wikipedia

Frameworks:

Not frameworks:

Not frameworks
(yet?):

MVC

DRY

Scaffolds
Migrations
Plugins

Why I like
frameworks
•I save time
•I write less code
•I write better code
•I get a strong support network
•My app meets my exact needs

Potential
complaints
• Scalability?
• Learning curve?
• Hosting issues?
Twitter.com

Let’s build an app!