Over the past ten years or so, concepts such as Web 2.0, Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), and the Semantic Web have all pushed HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to and beyond their limits, often relying on plug-ins such as Adobe® Flash to power components such as video and audio, as well as highly graphical and interactive applications. The Adobe Flex development framework, Microsoft®’s Silverlight platform, and JavaFX have all looked to provide support where HTML’s weaknesses made developers’ lives difficult. With HTML5, however, the markup language is striking back, with full multimedia support, local storage and offline application support, a native 2D drawing API, and a host of new application development APIs, all provided with the intent of proving that HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can provide a rich front end to your Web sites and applications.

Read the tutorial at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/tutorials/wa-html5/

JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language that has long been the client-side scripting interface of choice for Web browser applications. JavaScript lets Web developers programmatically work with objects on a Web page, providing a platform for manipulating these objects on-the-fly. When JavaScript was first introduced, it was commonly used to provide trivial features on Web pages such as clocks and scrolling text in the browser status bar. Another common feature was the “rollover link,” where an image or text color of a link would be changed when the user rolled their mouse over it. In recent times, however, JavaScript has evolved to become far more useful, with the concept of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) bringing a whole new level of interactivity to Web-based programming. Prior to Ajax, any server-side processing or database access would require the entire page to be “refreshed” or a new page to be rendered by the browser. Not only is this slow and frustrating for the user, but it is also a waste of bandwidth and resources.

Read the article at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-jsframeworks/

Django is a Python-based open source Web application framework that focuses on making the process of creating database-driven Web sites and Web applications easier. Getting started with developing Django applications is simple, as a development Web server is included with the framework. However, this server is not suitable for use in a production environment, so further steps are required to deploy your Django application to the Web. In this article, you will learn about the Django framework and how to install it on your local machine. Discover how a Django application is made and about the automatic administration interface created for your application. You will then find out how to deploy your Django application to the Web on a server running Apache and mod_python. Finally, learn how Django applications can and should be scaled as your application’s requirements grow.

Read the article at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-django/

While Web 2.0 has been a huge hit with consumers, some businesses have been much slower to embrace it. Many companies, however, are now realizing the great potential of Web 2.0 and how Web 2.0 services such as YouTube, Twitter, and SlideShare can provide value to their organizations. See how businesses can exploit the power of Web 2.0 services while simultaneously improving workplace relationships. Empower your employees to share information that helps generate sales leads, aids in recruitment, and assists in strengthening your company’s brand, image, and corporate identity. Explore business-oriented Web 2.0 tools such as LinkedIn and CrunchBase and the Web services and APIs that many of these tools offer, allowing their benefits to be incorporated into other applications.

Read the tutorial at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-web20business/

The following is the description of the tutorial on the IBM developerWorks website itself:

The term Enterprise 2.0 is gaining traction in organizations across the globe. This article investigates the underlying concepts of Enterprise 2.0, its relationship with Web 2.0, and the various tools and services that apply to it. Examine the benefits of employing Enterprise 2.0 in your business, and explore some of the potential drawbacks associated with it. Use this article to help you decide how to best implement Enterprise 2.0 in your organization.

Read the tutorial at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-enterprise20/

The following is the description of the tutorial on the IBM developerWorks website itself:

Adobe® has released the free, open source Flex SDK framework to enable developers to create Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). The Flex framework provides you with a method of creating cross-browser, cross-platform Web applications that is quick and simple. Flex applications run in the Flash player, which is installed on the majority of Internet-connected computers, but Flex also provides you with an object-oriented user interface framework similar to Java™ Swing. In this tutorial, develop a Facebook application in Adobe Flex that displays a slideshow of a user’s Facebook photo albums. The Facebook application will contain a profile box listing all of the user’s photo albums, each a link to a Flex slideshow of that album. The Flex application will use the Facebook REST API to fetch the photos of the selected Facebook album and dynamically generate the slideshow.

Read the tutorial at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/wa-dw-wa-facebookflex.html