/*How To Unify And Streamline Web App Development With DataFlex*/

In reality, sourcing and hiring a genuine full-stack developer is a real challenge. So what if we told you there’s another way? DataFlex – our proven programming platform for enterprise development teams – allows you to downsize your dev team by empowering any developer with full-stack capabilities even if they’re not a ‘full-stack developer’. Interested? Read on.

Unify different approaches to building web apps

Developers who build web applications tend to fall into one of two categories – frontend or backend. At the same time, when coding a web app, developers must choose between different tech stacks. What’s needed for a web application is a database, a server-side language (for data and business logic), and a language or framework for the client user interface (UI).

Take this example. Let’s say you choose to develop your web app in PHP. First, you need a framework like Laravel or Symfony. Using the framework, you expose an API to connect with the client’s framework, and the chosen stack on the client side for the UI – typically CSS with JavaScript in one form or another, such as React, Angular, or Vue.js.

As you already know, your choices in this scenario are restricted by the development talent available to you. That means your selection of technologies depends on your developers and their strengths. Broadly speaking, developers’ mindsets fall into two camps:

• Flexible – Some developers will work in any language in and around their repertoire to get the job done. They may even consider learning a similar language to their preferred choice, if the learning curve is not too steep.
• Fixed – Other developers are more evangelical and purist about a particular programming language. They prefer to narrow down to a specific language, and they need a lot of convincing to step outside their comfort zone. This can make development more labor-intensive and less cost-efficient; especially if more developers are needed.

So how do you play to your team’s strengths whilst delivering the best results for your business? DataFlex has both bases covered.

Streamline your dev team’s tech stack

For web app developers who are results-driven and want to develop the best solution in the fastest time, DataFlex is the ideal language and framework in one. At the same time, it empowers developers who prefer to work in one language without having to dive into CSS and JavaScript as well.

Here’s a bit of background.

Back in the mid-2000s, Microsoft’s ASP.NET was a popular server-side web application framework used to produce dynamic web pages. This made it possible to insert client data into the UI code. Around the same time, Data Access took that idea further to create its own web application framework.

Why was that significant? Instead of inserting data into the frontend code, developers could now keep all the logic together and create basic web controls. The server just provides the information and waits for the call to do something with it. The end result is that you only need one language. There’s no need to learn multiple languages because you can build everything in one coding platform – DataFlex.

This makes it possible for a backend developer to build a web application without specialist knowledge of front-end development (and vice versa). As a language and framework, DataFlex is broad enough that someone with a general knowledge of coding can easily create a web app.

Do it differently with DataFlex

If you were to break down DataFlex, all the core components of your web app’s codebase are still there. The difference between DataFlex and a multi-language approach is that all these parts are integrated as one.

There’s no need to figure out how to glue different components together. DataFlex makes it seamless, with very little additional effort on the developer’s side. What you get is a secure, maintainable, and high-performing codebase and a single tech stack.

Without DataFlex, your web app project requires you to run two different tech stacks, and two teams, and you have to debug both ends. With DataFlex you have one place to find and resolve bugs and errors.

Regardless of whether your in-house expertise leans towards frontend or backend development, DataFlex gives your devs an intuitive and robust full-stack coding language. That means you can build web apps quickly and easily.

Interested in discovering how you can unify and streamline web app development with DataFlex? Let’s chat! Contact us today

 Note: a copywriter wrote this blog, after a deep dive with Bram