What's the oldest still-maintained web framework? [closed]

Question

I'm curious as to know how far back web frameworks go (of which I can still use today).

(Just as an FYI I don't consider CGI to be a framework as much as protocol or an interface.)

Briony

Answer 1

While "initial releases" and "current versions" may be radically different and/or incompatible, here is a small list I have compiled. While some of the approaches are antiquated, I believe they all fall within the "web framework" category, although this may vary by definition.

Also, check out Ian Darwin's: Java Web Framework List -- granted it is Java-specific, as the name implies.

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ColdFusion was first released in 1995. I suspect it is one of the first "frameworks".

Open BlueDragon has been about since 1998. It is a CFML implementation.

ASP (aka Classic ASP) debuted in 1998 -- not to be confused with ASP.NET.

JSP followed suit in 1999. The Servlet model is very much in use today.

Struts has been around in some form since 1999.

Tapestry may have been available about 2000.

Drupal, perhaps more of a "CMS", was released in 2001.

HTML::Mason was on CPAN by 2001.

ASP.NET was released in 2002 (along with .NET 1.0).

Seaside has been around since 2004.

Wicket has been about since at least 2004.

Ruby On Rails had a release in 2004. Django, arguably the "Python counterpart" of the time, was released in 2005. The "PHP counterpart", CakePHP, was also released in 2005.

Pylons is circa 2005, but has been superseded by Pyramid.

Elephantiasis

Can't help but notice that whilst mentioning PHP in the ruby on rails you haven't actually put PHP which is still a very active framework. PHP was released in 1995 – Churl

@Churl PHP is a language (albeit with highly embedded output and an increasing number of "core methods") and Ruby is a language. Ruby On Rails is a framework written in Ruby and likewise CakePHP, which is mentioned, is a framework in PHP. – Plumbo

Answer 2

Project Xanadu, Ted Nelson's 1960 hypertext model. Still alive today.

Antependium

Answer 3

First time I heard of a javascript framework it was prototype.js
Everybody went irrationally crazy about it.

Then came scriptaculous and mootools, I ignore in what order.
They where based over prototype. Some went crazy over it.

Then... (drumroll) jQuery, and guess what?
No-one bothered.

Then dojo, and some took notice.

Then everybody suddenly got tsunami-crazy about jQuery.

The newest one is most certainly Ample SDK.

Beechnut

Are these things 'web frameworks'? Is jQuery not just a javascript library? – Jd

They are totally javascript frameworks. Libraries (like dunno, cssQuery) are different as they don't impose a writing style and a core foundation of libraries on you. The question was (and is) pretty vague about what kind of frameworks (or language) it is referring to. – Beechnut

And javascript is so much more generic "web" than other server side frameworks. ;) ...so many languages and environments on the server side... – Beechnut

Answer 4

Struts was around since June 2003

Temperance

Struts has been around circa 2000. – Plumbo