A Brief History of Web Development

Initially, HTML was used primarily for static documents, and the web was text-only. Around 1993, graphical web browsers emerged, allowing multimedia content to be combined with text on the same page.

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) was introduced, and server-side scripting languages like Perl and PHP gained popularity. With the launch of HTML 2.0, the <form> element enabled users to submit data to the backend, making the web into more dynamic.

In 1995, JavaScript was introduced, adding interactivity to web pages. A year later, CSS was created to enhance the presentation layer of web content.

By that time, hyperlinks and form submissions were the primary mechanisms for interacting with the server, often replacing the current page with another one. The advent of Ajax empowered JavaScript to perform asynchronous network operations, allowing applications to request data or HTML from the backend without refreshing the entire page. This methodology, still in use today, can be seen in libraries like pjax and htmx.

In 2006 jQuery was born, simplifying DOM manipulation, with ideas that later influenced the standard DOM API.

During the early 2000s, Flash became the primary technology for creating rich, interactive web content, including animations, games, and video playback. HTML5 was drafted as a response to Flash, enabling web applications to become more capable.

As web application be come more complex, various architectural paradigms emerged for both client-side and backend applications. On the backend, notable architectures and patterns included MVC and IoC. On the frontend, frameworks like Knockout.js (MVVM), Angular (MVVM), and Backbone (MVC) facilitated the development of large-scale, dynamic client applications.

In Year 2013, React was introduced, marking a new era in web development and leading to its current prominence.