Selecting the right technologies for an effective Web presence architecture can be more of an art than a science. Fanatical debates rage on blogs and wikis between followers of one language versus another. However, focusing on the functional specifications of a Web site and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each language or paradigm will allow for a scalable and maintainable solution.

Although it is useful from a development standpoint to separate the tools that execute as part of a Web browser itself (front end) from those that execute on the Web server (back end), the two components are often intertwined. For example, a PHP script runs on the Web server, but is actually generating the HTML content run on the Web browser.

As an introduction to the various languages used in Web 2.0, the first article in this collection, "Developers Shift to Dynamic Programming Languages," provides a brief highlight of the common tools of the trade, such as JavaScript, PHP, Python, and Ruby. Again, some overlap exists between functionality of various tools, and it is often up to the user to determine which language is best for his or her needs. The second article in this collection, "Programming the Web: The W3C DOM Specification", is admittedly Web 1.0 in scope. However, the DOM model provides the crucial abstraction layer upon which Web 2.0 + tools will reside, and an understanding of the power of DOM allows for rapid and efficient Web Programming.

"A Comparison of Distributed Groupware Implementation Environments" provides a case study insight into selected combinations of tools and paradigms, and their perceived strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, "Simplifying Ajax-style Web Development" begins more of a "deep dive" as it goes into a little more detail of Ajax and highlights more operational and implementation issues to be considered.

Finally, the "Web Server Architectures" article touches on fine-tuning the Web server itself to gain performance. Although this does not involve the language or tool selections, it provides a segue to the platform tuning that will be required once the Web presence is successfully launched.

Wes Chou is an engineering manager in Cisco's Application Delivery Business Unit. He has experience with large-scale application-aware networks and has seen load balancers placed in every possible location imaginable within a network. He serves on the Editorial Board of IT Professional.