open source
Where we can, we build our solutions on open source software. If you're not familiar with the concept, there are two things you need to know about it. First, it's free, so lots of people use it. Second, the source code is freely available, so lots of programmers are able to adapt and improve it.
The result is that you get high-quality software at very low cost. For less than you'd probably pay just to license equivalent proprietary products, you can be up and running on software in use at places like Google, Yahoo!, and Amazon.
For web sites, we can deliver the entire solution with open source. Here are our preferred tools:
- server operating system: Ubuntu Linux
- web server: Apache
- programming languages: Python
- web framework: Django
- database: PostgreSQL
We've also got years of experience with Java development; if that's a requirement for your project we're partial to lightweight solutions based on Spring and Tomcat.
productive tools
The right choice of tools can make programmers much more productive. For those with the freedom to choose the best, web development can be faster and easier than ever before. As a small shop, we do have that freedom, so your project can cost less and take less time than you might think. Here are our favorite competitive advantages:
The Python programming language is a remarkably concise and powerful tool. We've seen entire solutions in Python take fewer lines of code than just the XML configuration for a Java application. The Python development cycle is also super quick -- there are no compilation and deployment steps, so you can rapidly make and test changes as quickly as you can save them and hit reload in your browser.
The Django web framework builds on Python to deliver a scaffolding for web sites. It lets us focus on your site's business logic and appearance, leaving to Django much of the grunt work of getting data to and from the browser and the database. It also prevents a number of security problems, and ensures your site's performance with a fast templating system and built-in caching support.
Both Python and Django can be deployed on a large number of platforms, and work with a variety of web servers and databases.