Development

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field15 has been developing websites and applications for the Internet, desktop, and other devices since 1998. Our technical staff is highly-trained in a wide variety of programming languages, protocols, and software packages, and we bring experience from across a diverse range of sectors and industries to every project that we do. All of our work is standards-based and follows best practices, which means that it's robust, dependable, and secure.

Development Philosophy

The philosophy that drives all of our development projects is simple: Use the right tool for the right job. Having a large toolbox at our disposal helps to make following this rule relatively simple most of the time. But, there are times when outside constraints may guide the technical details of exactly how a project must be done. In those situations, you can count on us to voice our concerns and to make sure that you understand the major pitfalls and shortcomings of any decisions before it's too late.

In addition, this philosophy also helps us steer you away from technical fads and toward technologies that will stand the test of time. That doesn't mean that we purposefully avoid the latest and greatest trends in development—sometimes the greatest techniques really are the latest! But, it does mean that we don't jump on technical bandwagons simply because they're the newest thing around. Before we recommend any solutions to you, you can be sure that we've carefully researched and tested them ourselves.

Finally, once the ball starts rolling, we employ our own style of Rapid Application Development techniques that let us ensure that bugs are found sooner rather than later while also putting something tangible onto your screen very early in the development lifecycle. All of this happens as we're producing even the most complicated chunks of code in a short amount of time—without sacrificing reliability or security.

Development Toolbox

So, now that you know the philosophies that guide our development processes, you may be wondering which technologies, exactly, we work with:

Static Websites
We author static websites using a combination of XHTML and standards-based CSS and JavaScript. And, because we've been working with the federal government for many years, we also understand the ins and outs of Section 508 compliance and usability issues to deliver your content to audiences of all types.
Content Management Systems
Over the last decade, we've developed custom content management systems in Perl, PHP, and Ruby. We've also worked in Django CMS, Drupal, Joomla!, Plone, and WordPress (which we'd argue falls somewhere between a blogging platform and a full-blown CMS).
Web Application Frameworks
While at least half of our projects require us to write custom applications from scratch in anything from Java to Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby, the other half is based on pre-existing web application frameworks. Some of the frameworks we typically develop in include Catalyst, Django, and Ruby on Rails, but we have and can work in many others.
Data
Data is almost certainly the core of any development project. When it comes to data storage, we have the most experience with Microsoft Access, MySQL, PostGreSQL, and Oracle databases. And when it comes to getting data from here to there, we've worked extensively with Ajax, RESTful web services, and SOAP.

After more than ten years in the development business, you can be sure that we've worked with many more technologies than what we've listed here. So, if you didn't see something on this page that you were specifically looking for, feel free to ask us. If it's something we have done or can do, we'd be happy to tell you all about it.

Because we have expertise in a wide range of programs and languages, we'll make technology decisions based solely on what's best for you.