In the first generation web technologies were developed to tap the resources from a commercial point of view. The patrons perceived the development of the new media to bring more profits in terms of monetary gains. But as the web world advances to take over new responsibilities and roles, its very character is observing changes that are more or less inclined towards the human side.

The maxim of Web 2.2 which goes as 'Web for the people and by the people' clearly gives an insight of the new character adopted by the web and the emergence of community services. In the new era the developmental work as such emphasizes on increased participation of the audience member. It is this audience, the users spread all over the world that drive the web today.

In order to bring increased levels of participation and give way to more interactions, many community service programs have been thrown open to the people. At present a plethora of community services like Face book, Orkut, Hi5, etc., connect the people and communities at large. Blogs and forums have further helped as better tools and platforms for interacting with each other. Then there are Wikis that make available important online resources for the people at large.

In community web development technologies have primarily been redeveloped to make them user-friendly and interactive. On technical front both the designing as well as the scientific coding have been utilized to forge the end product for the benefit of the people at large. As of now many of these products or online services are available as free and open ended services.

Hence community web development incorporates all those elementary changes that are required to disentangle the web from commercial values. The services and products under it have primarily been designed and developed to allow the people to come nearer and enjoy the benefits of new technology. It is worth mentioning at this point that many business organisations develop such products or deliver services to have better relations with the public. Occasionally it might happen that a free community service in the due course of time change its preferences and take a commercial identity.

In fact easy web programming languages are already here right under our noses. Awareness of easy alternatives to popular but more complex systems based on Apache, Perl, PHP, and Ruby and their frameworks is minimal because of marketing forces.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier but this promise has not been delivered to web developers especially. The page centered way that web applications are created forces programmers to tie many parts together with extra code that isn't needed in traditional (non-web) programming. The complexity of it all scares away the beginners and causes professional developers to be unproductive (and bald).

The popular web development culture advocates programming features like REST capability and stateless pages but these features actually complicate the development process. If you don't know what REST is, or what stateless pages are then you'll appreciate what I'm about to say: You shouldn't need to understand those ideas to create web applications. There are some programming systems which abandon these ideas, and in so doing they make web development simpler and even enjoyable. They also do receive a certain degree of disdain by the "establishment", but for those willing to think outside the box the benefits can be substantial for some kinds of web projects. This article will discuss some of these systems in short.

Seaside, http://www.seaside.st- The Seaside web development framework (also known as the Heretic web framework) is a system which provides almost a complete stack (provide your own database). It includes an HTTP server, automatic application sessions, transparent state management, live development and debugging, Ajax libraries and more.

Seaside developers code in the venerable Smalltalk language to build their applications. With a combination of an easy to use component-style page generation metaphor, support for cascading style sheets, and the powerful expressiveness of Smalltalk the Seaside developer enjoys tremendous productivity.

Seaside is an open source project with a liberal license and is available for both free and commercial Smalltalk platforms.

Run BASIC, http://www.runbasic.com- Run BASIC is a zero configuration web application server that features an extremely easy web development metaphor, suitable for the beginner. In one easy install it provides an HTTP server, automatic application sessions, transparent state management, tightly integrated BASIC programming language, inline CSS capability, graphics library, an XML parser and SQLite database support. Even with all the included functionality, the programmer is not confronted with a lot of complexity because of Run BASIC's built-in easy to use commands.

Run BASIC brings to the web the easy programming that BASIC has historically been known for. It is suitable for personal projects, educational situations, small business apps and more. There is an interactive version of the system hosted at the Run BASIC website so that anyone can try their hand at writing code. Cost: $59.95

Sun Labs Lively Kernel Project, http://research.sun.com/projects/lively- The Lively Kernel project is a web programming system developed at Sun by the inventor of the Smalltalk programming language. It is very cutting edge and very novel. It turns your web browser into a Javascript development environment and it includes a scalable vector graphics based windowing library. While this system may not be appropriate for some commercial websites, it is suitable for online games and educational curricula. Lively Kernel provides a kind of personal laboratory for building very dynamic applications that work in a browser.

Lively Kernel is supported in Safari and Firefox 2 and 3, but Safari is the recommended platform as of the writing of this article. It is licensed under the GPL2.

Most web development projects include one or more of the following elements...

• Database design and creation
• Server-side computer programming
• Client-side computer programming
• Web page design

Each of these elements has to work in its own right, and in cooperation with the other elements. The more complex the project, the harder it is to bring it all together and make it work correctly.

How to keep the cost down

Here's how you can make sure your web development costs don't run over budget...

1. Insist every aspect of the development is described in an Agreement document, and make sure both you and the developer sign it
2. Don't make changes after work has started

The key to achieving the second of these two items lies with the first. You should insist that an Agreement document be created, and sit in on the process.

You need both end-users and developers in the same room, working through each aspect of the development. The end result must be a document that fully describes the development, is clear (unambiguous), and easily understood by both users and programmers.

Every minute you invest creating this document greatly increases your chance of bringing the project in on budget.

Why it's worth it

Many of the problems that usually cause headaches during a complex development could have been discovered in advance, if an Agreement document had been created. When users and programmers get together and discuss their respective needs thoroughly, the resulting development is far more likely to go smoothly.

This kind of interaction forces both users and programmers to think through what's actually required to make the system work. The ongoing interaction reduces the risk that person A assumes person B knows what they're talking about.

Users are committing to a specific set of functions for an agreed price. The developer is committing to develop those functions for an agreed price. This means both users and developers have a self-interest in being thorough.

Should a user change his/her mind about something after the Agreement document is signed, the cost of development must be renegotiated. This punishes the user for failing to think things through.

Should the developer discover he/she hasn't fully understood what's required to complete some aspect of the project, he/she can't ask for more money. This punishes the developer for failing to break down each stage of the development and understand what's involved in completing it.

Assuming you do your part, you won't need to make changes after the work has started. As a result, you'll bring the project in on budget even if the developer hasn't done his/her job properly.