Opa is a web development platform that is mostly focused on scalability, easy deployment to the cloud, security and a faster coding process to create apps.

It consists of the following which are tightly integrated into each other:

• a new programming language
• a new web server
• a new database
• a new distributed execution engine

Opa is a little different most other programming languages around considering the integrity it has. There is no need to deal with any other software, server or language (even SQL or JavaScript). Just Opa.

Out of the box, the platform has everything for scaling of storage, transactions and how they are served. It handles them automatically by using minimum resources.

Opa is currently available for Mac OS X and Linux, however, Windows support is under development. It is also very well-documented.

P.S. Although a new language usually looks hard (or unnecessary) for any developer, Opa is definitely worth checking out.

As the number of cloud storage services increases & projects may require using multiple services at the same time, it becomes complicated for a developer to learn the details of each provider.

Simple Cloud API is an open source project that aims to create a common PHP interface for using cloud services.

It currently supports the storage API for:

• Amazon S3
• Windows Azure Blob Storage
• Nirvanix
• Local

and, in the near future, aims to support Rackspace Cloud Files, GoGrid Cloud Storage besides the queue & document APIs of all services.

The project is backed by Zend & supported by IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace, Nirvanix, and GoGrid.

Web applications are offering an almost desktop-like functionality parallel to the increase in the connectivity speeds, wider usage of the cloud (easier scalability) & improvements in JavaScript/RIA development.

Also, moving to the cloud is no more a fantasy, it is the "current & future trend" considering the popularity of applications like Google Docs, Adobe Acrobat Online or web-based OSs.

As a web designer/developer, it is possible not to use any desktop softwares & work 100% web-based.

There are several tools that we use daily & has vital importance:

• IDE (code editor)
• Image editor
• Database manager
• FTP application
• Storage

Although desktop environment, clearly, has many advantages over web, web has an important one like working from any computer (even it is a weak one) & staying synchronized.

Here are free web applications that you can use to create your own web-based design/development environment:

Code Editing

PHPanywhere

This web application offers a desktop-like coding environment with features like:

• multiple projects
• built-in FTP explorer
• syntax highlighting
• undo-redo support
• & more.

There are also features like tabs, find-replace or auto-completion that we could expect from a desktop IDE.

Read the rest of this entry »