What are the common patterns in web programming?

Question

I have been trying to write my first big web app (more than one cgi file) and as I kept moving forward with the rough prototype, paralelly trying to predict more tasks, this is the todo that got accumulated (In no particular order).

* Validations and input sanitizations
* Object versioning (to avoid edit conflicts. I dont want hard locks)
* Exception handling
* memcache
* xss and injection protections
    * javascript
    * html
* ACLs
* phonetics in search, match and find duplicates (for form validation)
* Ajaxify!!!

(I have snipped off the project specific items.)

I know that each todo will be quite tied up to its project and technologies used. What I am wondering though, is if there is a pattern in your todo items as well as the sequence in which you experienced guys have come across them.

Answer 1

Almost all of your list is "Framework".

Almost none of that is functionality a user actually sees.

My to do list never looks like that. Never.

Consequently, I have this advice.

STOP.

Do this instead.

1. Find a framework that does this.

2. Focus on the the actual users and their actual use cases.

Now your todo list will have actual use cases that an actual user will actually care about. That's what should be on your todo list. Not framework technology. Use cases.

Answer 2

If this is actually a big web app that will be deployed for general consumption, then I'd add on Rate Limiting.

Answer 3

model view controller of course. start with some framework first. in php kohana is good , for python django is good, ruby on rail and so on...

Answer 4

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern: decouples users inputs and the presentation layer from your application data.