Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
68 lines (55 loc) · 5.52 KB

tech-stacks.md

File metadata and controls

68 lines (55 loc) · 5.52 KB
Raw

Technology Stacks

One of the most exciting and challenging things about the capstone project is learning new technologies to integrate into your project.

What Do We Mean By "Tech Stack"?

Real-world projects are composed from a selection of specific technologies that each take care of some piece of the work necessary to have a production-ready application. The full set of technologies that are used in a project is known as the technology stack for that project.

For your capstone project you'll need to determine what tech stack you should use, based on the needs of your project plan. What we're presenting below covers a wide range of possible technologies that could be involved in large production applications, such as what you may see in your internships. Your capstone projects will not need to have all of these technologies.

Major Parts of a Web Application Tech Stack

Every project's goals are different, and as a result its tech stack will be different. However, within the realm of web applications there are several major pieces that virtually every project requires:

  • Back-end
    • Web application framework
    • Web server
    • Database server
    • Authentication framework
  • Front-end
    • JavaScript framework
    • CSS library (or language)
    • Internationalization (i18n)
    • Mobile framework/language
  • Web infrastructure
    • Server hosting
    • Content delivery network
    • DNS hosting/management
    • SSL certificates
  • Code infrastructure
    • Code quality/linting tools
  • DevOps systems
    • Provisioning
    • Orchestration
    • Monitoring

We've already seen many technologies that fill several of these roles. For example, Rails is a Web application framework. It has a built-in Web server which we've used, however there are a number of alternatives including Puma which is now the default in Rails 5. What roles are filled by some of the other technologies we've used?

A couple of the technologies listed above are possibly new to you because we've not had to implement them for our projects so far. For example, both DNS hosting and SSL certificates were handled for us by Heroku when we deployed our Rails applications. In more complex deployment scenarios these, and many other, tasks must be handled by either the developers or a DevOps team working closely with them.

Additional Tools & Services

In addition to the technologies listed above other technologies are often added to a stack because of specific needs from the project.

For example, if the application allows users to pay for items or services (such as an e-commerce site) the technology stack would need to include a payment processing service such as Stripe. Here are some other technologies that are likely to be found in a web application tech stack:

Choosing Technologies For Your Capstone

For your capstone project you will need to choose a collection of technologies that will comprise the tech stack for your application. The specific technologies you choose will depend upon the goals and requirements of your project plan, as well as your personal interests as a developer.

When choosing a set of technologies it can be helpful to think of it like putting together a puzzle. Each technology fits into a particular location in the stack, and it usually integrates with one or more other technologies in the stack. Think about what technologies have been used in your previous projects and how each of them have interacted with the other technologies.

If you had to extend one of these projects, for example bEtsy, what kind of technology would you use? Where would it fit in the stack, and what other technologies would it integrate with? These kinds of questions usually lead developers to conduct research on what specific technologies would be most applicable based on the technologies that are already in the stack.