It seems that developers are expected to be familiar with or have experience with every aspect of web development and are constantly facing questions about their knowledge and experience: What kind of web developer are you? Front-end, back-end, full stack? Do you know PHP, MySQL, Ruby, Node.js, React, Angular?
It seems like there are no limits to what developers are expected to know and do.
When we designed Velo, we looked at this landscape and wanted to help make web developer’s lives easier. That’s why we focused on an intuitive, streamlined, and accelerated way for developers to build fully functional web applications.
How does Velo accelerate the process of building web applications? It deals with some of the challenges the industry doesn’t want to talk about.
Put the Code in the Front of Front-end
The first challenge that Velo is tackling is the high level of difficulty in working as a front-end developer. To start, front-end developers have to spend a great deal of their time working with HTML and CSS. While these technologies aren’t necessarily difficult to use, they can be tricky to master.
Working with CSS can feel like a daunting task even to those who feel comfortable with it. For other developers, CSS can feel inscrutable or opaque, and they will often have to waste valuable time trying to understand where there CSS has gone wrong.
Apart from CSS, front-end developers are also now being asked to learn one of several competing Javascript frameworks to help them build UI. React, Angular, and Vue are all capable technologies, but these competing frameworks have also served to complicate the landscape of what developers are expected to know.
A Different Approach to Front-end Design
With Velo, we are taking a different approach that can make front-end design a much faster and less painful process. Our solution is an intuitive visual-builder. The UI builder allows anyone, whether they have deep experience with front-end design or not, to create a complete UI for their web application.
Why streamline the UI design process? It allows developers, of any background, to focus on the core functionality of their app.
Tackling the DevOps Challenge with Node.js and Serverless
One of the other challenges that Velo tackles is the challenge of DevOps, building apps that are scalable and that can be managed easily. As if it weren’t enough to ask developers to wear multiple hats, the industry also demands that they keep track of an entirely different set of challenges. Developers have to work closely with DevOps teams to make sure that their applications will not only serve the needs of users, but also won’t place undue strains on the site’s infrastructure and servers.
Velo, on the other hand, is a serverless platform. Scale, security, and server management are handed off to Wix’s cloud infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on the functionality of their apps. In addition, with Node.js, developers can rely on a trusted and widely adopted technology to develop their applications.
These core experiences, rapid visual frontend design and serverless deployment, strip away numerous obstacles that can slow down application development. Velo also allows developers to build applications using either the built-in online IDE with quick access to UI elements, or they can use their own, local development tools. With local development, Velo users can build applications in the IDE of their choice, running on their own local machine, and also collaborate with team members as they would with any other development project. This provides developers with the flexibility to code in the environment they prefer, and nothing promotes speed more than familiarity.
To find out more, you can read our post on what developers need to know or explore this quick reference guide to Velo documentation.
