Technical Information - Programming
The success of a project depends upon choosing the correct technologies and programming languages. Informed choices allow your project to be completed quickly and cost-effectively and they ensure a durable solution. The choice of technology should be based on one or more of the following: existing IT infrastructure, existing in-house skills, scalability required, durability of the finished solution, availability of the finished solution, performance of the finished solution, budget, build time available.
Other important factors relating to the choice of technology are: how new the technology is, whether it has been tried and tested, how many people are using the technology, the availability of expertise in the technology, how much longer the technology will be around and whether the software manufacturer can be relied upon to keep the technology up to date.
In our experience the technologies shown below allow us to offer the maximum flexibility to our clients. The technologies that we use are mainstream and widely-used, which means that any competent programmer will be able to work with or interface with our solutions thereby giving our clients more flexibility.
In situations where skills in other technologies are required we are able to call upon the services of a range of freelance specialists who can assist us with your project.
Component and Application development
OBS Group has in-house expertise in the following core languages for component and application development.
Java
Java is used to develop JavaServer Pages's, Sevlets and Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) within the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) framework.
Microsoft C++
C++ is used to develop COM components for multimedia projects and websites that are using classic ASP, while Visual C++ is used to create Windows applications.
Microsoft C#
Our language of choice when creating websites using ASP.NET is C#. We also use C# to create Windows Forms-based applications.
Scripting
OBS Group uses the following scripting technologies during project development:
JavaScript
JavaScript is used for all DHTML programming and for any browser-based scripting required. We also use JavaScript as the language of choice when developing website applications using
classic ASP.
Almost all our projects use JavaScript for client browser scripting and/or web server scripting.
Database development
OBS Group uses the following databases and database technologies, as appropriate, to satisfy the requirements of a project:
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is used for websites that require a very simple database with a limited amount of data storage. It is used where the number of concurrent site users is predicted to be very low and the potential speed and stability of the solution are being offset against the client’s available budget for the project. Access can perform very well in certain conditions and can prove to be a great choice as a value-for-money option. For more information about Microsoft Access click the link.
MySQL
MySQL provides a good budget solution for fairly simple databases requirements. The volume of data and number of concurrent users is much less of an issue than with Microsoft Access. However MySQL is not suitable where more complex data manipulation is required, due to its lack of support for ‘stored procedures’, ‘views’ and ‘triggers’. For more information about MySQL click the link.
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server is used on more complex projects where the volume of data is large and the number of concurrent users is high, and data integrity and speed of operation are crucial. SQL Server offers an excellent solution to almost all complex website development project requirements. For more information about Microsoft SQL Server click the link.
Oracle
Oracle is a high specification Enterprise database that has many of the features of Microsoft SQL server and more. For more information about Oracle click the link.
Web server technologies and platforms
OBS Groups uses the following web server technologies based on various different server operating systems.
Microsoft ASP
Active Server Pages allow scripts on a web page to be run on the Server before the file is transmitted to the client. This provides a great way of creating dynamic and configurable web pages and connecting to back-end databases.
We have completed many projects using classic ASP with JavaScript as the scripting language and C++-developed components for the more intensive areas of functionality of the sites. Almost every site we develop in ASP interfaces with some kind of database (Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle) or XML source using OLE DB.
ASP can offer a low-cost environment for developing interactive database-driven websites that have good availability and durability for the hardware that is used to run them.
Although we now usually choose the newer ASP.NET (see below), we still use classic ASP regularly for updating existing sites that were built using this technology.
For more information about ASP please click the link.
Microsoft ASP.NET
ASP.NET is the next generation of Microsoft's Active Server Page (ASP) technology, and is supported by Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). ASP.NET differs from ASP in two major ways: it supports code written in compiled languages like C++, C#, Visual Basic and Perl, and it features server controls that can separate the code from the content.
We have been successfully developing websites using this technology since the beginning of 2002. ASP.NET is our language of choice for most website projects because of its superior performance, security and scalability. It is also a rapid-development language, which means it allows us to offer value-for-money solutions to clients with tight deadlines.
All our ASP.NET solutions have been developed using C# as the language of preference and they have interfaced with a wide variety of databases and data sources.
For more information about ASP.NET please click the link.
J2EE
Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) defines the standard for developing component-based multi-tier enterprise applications. Features include web services support and development tools. One of the more commonly talked about API's within J2EE is JavaServer Pages.
JavaServer Pages provide a framework to create dynamic content on the server using HTML and XML templates and Java code, which is secure, fast and independent of server platform.
We have developed many projects using J2EE. We create the dynamic pages using JSP and use Java for the creation of components such as JavaBeans and Servlets. Most of our J2EE projects to date have interfaced with Oracle and MySQL databases.
For more information about J2EE please click the link.
Please click the link to contact us regarding developing a website using the above technologies.