Framework
Is an essential tool in software development, which provides the developers with a structured foundation to built their applications upon. A framework is a pre-built set of code libraries, tools, conventions designed to ease and streamline the development process for specified applications or tasks.
What is it?
Think of a framework as scaffolding around a building. Just as scaffolding provides a set of guidelines and support structures to help builders create a stable and well-constructed building, a framework provides developers with a set of guidelines and functionalities to create software applications. It offers pre-written code for best practices and common tasks, enabling developers to focus on the unique aspects of their projects without having to write everything from scratch.
Frameworks come in various forms, such as web, frontend and general-purpose which aids building a wide range of applications and set a path for them. By specifying concepts of functionality, a framework ensures that developers follow consistency and an efficient approach to the development of software.
Use of Frameworks
The primary purpose of using a framework is to enhance efficiency and maintainability in software development.
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Efficiency
- Offers pre-built components and pre-defines structured sets, which reduces the time required to build an application from scratch.
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Consistency
- Enforces a coding standard and a design pattern, that ensures consistency and creation accorss different parts of the application and collaborators.
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Maintanance
- Comes with a built-in Debugging and testing tools, that simplifies the process of troubleshooting and maintaining the codebase over time.
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Scalability
- Supports database abstraction layers and caching mechanisms and ensures the possibility for increased load as the applications expand.
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Collaboration
- Developers are provided with a set of instructions such as naming conventions and overall a familiar structure to provide more suitable platform for collaborators.
History
The concept of frameworks dates back to ancient times for construction and building that set certain criterias and references to manage the structure being built. As the concept of frameworks evolves alongside software development itself, specific origins of software frameworks is difficult to references upon, though their widespread adoption gained a momentum in the late 20th century with addition of object-oriented programming languages and the complexity of software applications.
The earliest known examples of a framework is considered to be (MVC) Model-View-Controller, which dates to around 1970s. They laid the groundwork for the modern web framework, seperating data manipulation and presentation with user interaction. IWeb development, in the late 1990s and early 2000s saw the rise of frameworks like Struts for Java and ASP.NET for Microsoft’s .NET platform. These frameworks introduced developers to the concept of reusable components and standardized development practices.
As frameworks and standardization keeps rapidly evolving, each new framework aims to address specific challanges with the advancement of technology. Modern frameworks as of now play a central role in nearly every aspect of software development for web, data and more. Which empowers developers to build a maintainable, scalable, and robust applications as efficiently as possible.
This is only the brief history, though the topic goes deeper in the next sections to see and learn more about them see the existing ones within the website, under “ Table of contents “.