eCommerce sites were quite rare back in the day. They aren’t uncommon anymore now. Along with that, there has been an exponential increase in eCommerce platforms; both paid and free. We have also seen a rise in demand for open source development services over the past couple of years.
The popularity of a programming language is not just defined by how big its community is or how many developers adopted it. Its overall presence in projects, the number of projects that demand specific knowledge of a language, the software development needs etc. all factor in to make a programming language popular. In this blog, we will be exploring 5 popular programming languages that have made their mark across companies providing open source development services.
But before we begin, here’s a brief definition of an open source programming language.
To be termed ‘open source’, a programming language needs to meet certain requirements.
That said, here are 5 great programming languages that match the criteria above and are preferred by almost every leading software development company across the globe.
PHP is one of the oldest web-based programming languages in the world having been around since right after the web revolution. It became an instant winner with an easy-to-learn syntax making it a great option for small and medium-sized projects. A big chunk of almost all websites is driven by PHP frameworks.
Each new version of the language far surpasses its predecessors when it comes to web and stand-alone application development. PHP is also popular for its CodeIgniter and Laravel frameworks and its CMS solutions such as WordPress, Drupal, Magento, OpenCart etc. The language is backed by a large, thriving community full of developers and open source enthusiasts.
Python was originally designed as a simple language to learn computer science. The language that’s also known to have an easy coding process is used across a number of domains including desktop applications and even science calculations. Its most popular frameworks include Django, Pyramid, Flask, and Tornado. Python can be combined with popular technologies like JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, C/C++ etc.
Ruby is a rival to Python when it comes to simplicity but is known to be more elegant than its arguably more popular rival. The syntax of Ruby is such that even one line of code can do a number of actions. The open source language is also known for easy maintenance and its support for big programming paradigms such as OOP. Its most popular framework is Rails.
JavaScript is arguably the most used programming language in this list. It basically has a monopoly on the web’s client side owing to the fact that the most popular browsers only support JavaScript. It can be also used as a back-end engine to create a full stack web application. GitHub Statistics claim that JavaScript is the top language based on the number of pull requests alone. It’s most popular frameworks are React, Angular, and Vue.
Go, also known as Golang, is the youngest language in this list and was designed to make C obsolete. The biggest benefit of this promising language is its performance. Despite being as simple as C, Go has no OOP at all. With a multithreading core, Go is also highly scalable. Its only demerit is a relatively smaller community. However, the community is slowly growing bigger as Go turns more heads each year. Its most popular frameworks include Gin, Echo, and Beego.
Many companies offering both application development and application management services rely on open source tools and technologies for cost savings without compromising on the quality of their services. The languages mentioned in this blog are generally the most preferred among such companies and startups. Despite changing tides due to technological advancements, all 5 of these languages still retain their ranks as reliable assets to develop trendy, robust digital solutions.
Considering the phenomenal growth of open source over the last decade, it wouldn’t be surprising to know that open source technologies are now commonly used in traditional on-premise systems. But traditional on-premise systems are slowly going obsolete today as the cloud dominates.
Businesses are now investing in moving their workloads to the cloud which will require the usage of certain specific tools. This is where open source comes in. When shifting to the cloud, it’s best to start with great management tools. There are cloud-compatible open source tools specifically designed for resource management. Many companies also prefer open source software development to custom-build a tool that fits perfectly well with their business ecosystem.
This blog lists a few effective open source cloud management tools that will make things easier for a business migrating to the cloud.
Rhymes well with DevOps, doesn’t it?
That’s because the tool was built around the concept of DevOps and is ideal for a multi-cloud architecture. Released under the Apache 2.0 license by Walmart Labs, OneOps is officially described as a cloud management cum application lifecycle management platform. As such it rivals popular tools like Chef, Puppet etc.
OneOps is useful for all clouds that leverage OpenStack cloud environments be it public, private, or hybrid. It also goes well with Microsoft Azure services or AWS. With OneOps, a business will be able to create virtual instances, maintain them, and configure security settings in addition. But that isn’t all it can do with its biggest feature being facilitating application migration from one cloud to another.
It won’t be wrong to assume that Docker is the world’s most popular container technology. The open source technology is already considered a premium standard as a platform for container development as well as deployment.
With Docker’s open source orchestration services – Machine, Swarm, and Compose, organizations will find container management much easier and more effective.
The most dominant force to be reckoned with in the container management sector for public and private clouds, Google’s Kubernetes is a celebrated open source container orchestration system with its open source framework even adopted by many tech giants including Microsoft.
With Kubernetes, organizations can distribute their containers across a cluster of cloud machines while the technology efficiently deals with scaling and service management issues. Kubernetes is compatible with a plethora of cloud and data center services including Azure, AWS, and Apache Mesos.
Mesos, another open source tool, is also a great option for cloud management. What makes it unique is that it also makes it easier to manage traditional hardware and software along with clouds akin to how a single computer is managed. It’s sometimes referred to as a ‘distributed systems kernel’ that facilitates effective management of thousands of servers using containers. Mesos complements large, distributed databases like Hadoop.
Over the next couple of years, new cloud computing technologies and trends will emerge and several approaches your organization uses now may require drastic changes. Additionally, there will be advancements in open source technologies to consider as well; like when the advent of the MEAN stack led to the slow decline in demand for LAMP development services.
The complexity of open source cloud management tools is likely to go up a notch in the coming times. This means organizations should keep themselves updated on how things are changing around their business’ cloud ecosystem to figure out optimum approaches and the rights tools to derive the best results.
After its release, it didn’t take long for PHP to be considered as one of the most reliable open source technologies in the world. As a matter of fact, PHP stands at the forefront among companies offering open source development services. With great overall reliability and a huge community backing it, PHP is now a widely used server-side scripting language.
Complementing its many benefits is the presence of a broad range of tools – both free and premium that enable developers to get creative with the language.
In this blog, we present to you a list of a few great PHP tools that web developers would never regret using.
PhpStorm is a widely popular commercial IDE for PHP that can help streamline application development considerably. It offers integration with various popular PHP tools as well as relational databases, and supports widely used PHP frameworks and CMS solutions including but not limited to WordPress, Drupal, and Magento.
The PHP developer community welcomed the NetBeans Bundle for PHP with open arms. The bundle includes a plethora of great features – from semantic analysis with parameter highlighting to Symfony, Zend, and Yii framework support. In addition, it also supports code debugging with xdebug and unit testing with Selenium.
DebugBar is a PHP testing tool capable of identifying both HTML and JavaScript bugs. In addition, the tool is also capable of monitoring network traffic, evaluating JavaScript code, and inspecting CSS elements.
phpDox is a great solution for developers who require quick API documentation for a PHP application. The tool comes with a search feature and also offers information on code complexity and code coverage. In addition, developers can augment its functionality by adding more plugins.
RIPS originated as an open source tool but now is one of the leading security analysis solution for PHP. It’s a premium tool that offers consistently better threat analysis without false positives. RIPS code analysis is preferred by many developers to detect unknown security issues.
New Relic is a great alternative to the already popular Retrace. It comes with thorough applied intelligence-powered performance monitoring capabilities in addition to infrastructure monitoring and user data analysis. Developers can use it to understand app performance dependencies and bottlenecks.
Aptana Studio claims to be the world’s most powerful open source web development IDE, and it has loads of features to back that claim. What’s so great about Aptana Studio is that it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It has a built-in PHP server and debugging tool to build and test apps in one environment.
Unlike most other tools in this list, Sublime Text is just a text editor. But a good one at that. The go-to-anything feature is what makes Sublime Text a winner for our developers. The text editor lets developers quickly locate lines of code, and allows simultaneous editing – change multiple code instances at once. It’s not a free tool though. But a one-time fee of $80 makes it a wallet-friendly tool for developers.
There aren’t many developers out there who haven’t heard about Selenium. It’s a lightweight, open source testing framework compatible with the most popular browsers. Selenium allows users to create their own custom UI tests in any language and can also automate certain web-based administration tasks. It’s also a favorite for many companies offering Agile software development services.
There seems to be an abundance of open source PHP solutions that developers can choose from. We know that this list above is not complete, and requires quite a few other mentions. We simply wanted to keep things short and mention the ones that we personally know are worthwhile. We are sure the tools mentioned in this blog can aid any software development company specializing in PHP development.
Open source is so popular and widely used that there are people who are using it daily without even realizing it. There are people who use WordPress, one of the most popular open source platforms, for blogging. There are many who use Mozilla Firefox, another digital contribution from open source, for browsing. Open source development services are highly demanded by enterprises across various industries.
As a matter of fact, a survey by Black Duck last year revealed that 60% of the surveyed businesses reported an increase in the use of open source in 2017.
Despite the wide acceptance and popularity, open source technologies are heavily criticized by many. Many myths surround the technology and many people believe those myths and misconceptions are true. Here are 5 such open source myths that people still believe to be true.
The ‘free’ of open source technologies relates to ‘freedom’ i.e. open source technologies tend to have fewer restrictions than their proprietary counterparts. People think it’s all about the monetary cost and ‘free’ means it wouldn’t cost them anything.
However, there are free (literally) open source technologies available but they may not be the most up-to-date or feature-rich. Typically there wouldn’t be any licensing costs for open source software. But there are exceptions to this as well. The bottom-line is that not all open source is free, and not all free open source is good enough to make a difference for users.
Open source tools, especially open source software, has been used by organizations of all sizes since the early 1990s. Corporate giants like Microsoft, Google, IBM, and many other companies use open source tools in some form. Open source software development is a big industry with an ever increasing number of developers.
Many organizations refrain from using open source tools due to the misconception that they are less secure than proprietary software. This wrong notion is mostly due to the fact that the source code of an open source software is openly available to anyone who wants to tinker with it. This increases the likelihood of black hat hackers figuring out a vulnerability to exploit.
But this isn’t the whole truth. Contrary to public perception, open source codes also serve as a way for many open source experts to verify the integrity and security of the code i.e. security vulnerabilities are more likely to be detected, reported, and removed.
It’s true that some open source software don’t have a long lifespan. These software “die” once the community backing them leaves them behind. It’s the community itself that provides the biggest support for open source technologies. It’s pretty much the same for proprietary software as well. The company that developed the software may simply stop providing support one day, and move on to a more lucrative project. Popular open source software with a reputation will likely still have a community backing it, ready to help anyone with technical issues.
These are but a few myths around open source software. It isn’t as unreliable as many people still seem to believe. It’s open source technology that powers quite a lot of popular platforms that have proven their worth across various industries. An enterprise can have a customized open source software developed to drive business growth efficiently and securely – something that can do the job just like a proprietary software can but more cost-effectively.
