Web/Mobile Applications and the Basics of Information Technology

                        Web/Mobile Applications and the Basics of Information Technology

 

Building web and mobile applications has become ubiquitous in the modern world. These applications do not become far-reaching innovations overnight but are founded on the basic tenets of information technology (IT) and computer science. We look at how web and mobile applications play with the IT fundamentals, covering everything from historical evolution to hardware, programming, database, and network architecture.

 IT Fundamentals to IT Core

Web and mobile applications are not just the result of convergence between the three core tenets of IT data processing, algorithmic logic, and user-centric design. They are the perfect example of it. Fundamentally, these applications transform inputs into outputs, reflecting the input-process-output paradigm fundamental to computing (ZyBooks, 2025). This mirrors the historical progression from early computing hardware, such as the ENIAC that implemented batch processing, to current systems that support real-time interactive sessions. Monolithic mainframes have given way to distributed cloud-based applications, leveraging advances in processing power and connectivity principles emphasized in IT curricula.

Computer Science Concepts

The history of web and mobile application development is intertwined with milestones in computer science. Over the next several decades, computer languages underwent a remarkable evolution. New high-level languages and abstraction techniques continue to influence modern programming languages like Python, JavaScript, and C++, developed from Fortran in the 1950s (ZyBooks, 2025). Likewise, when the World Wide Web was invented in 1989, it sparked the rise of web applications, and the introduction of smartphones led to mobile apps being a leading paradigm. These applications are built on top of von Neumann architecture principles that leverage stored-program concepts to execute complex modular codebases. In addition, they oversee the use of hardware resources, enabling applications to run effectively on various devices.

Reliance on Hardware Parts

Hardware is important to manage modern applications. Central processing units, or CPUs, service commands, while random-access memory, or RAM, allows rapid data retrieval to run multiple programs simultaneously. Storage devices like solid-state drives (SSDs) are used to persist in user data and application code. Mobile apps leverage specialized hardware such as GPS modules, accelerometers, and cameras for context-aware features. Cloud computing, the backbone of scalable apps, is built on server farms with high throughput networking hardware, showing how distributed systems magnify local hardware limitations.

Programming Languages

Web and mobile applications use many programming languages and execution paradigms. Specifically, learning to use HTML/CSS to create structure and style for your pages and to use JavaScript for interactivity, which is usually done with (JIT) compilation in a web browser. Back-end systems use Python or Java to handle the server logic. Mobile applications are written in iOS or Android and compiled ahead of time as needed for performance. Abstraction Layers Enhance Portability Across OS Throughout the decades of application execution environments, major cross-platform frameworks like React Native have bridged execution environments, exposing divergence in paradigms and abstracting layers to enhance portability across OS (Coluccio et al., 2022).

Application Software Support System

The application software acts as the bridge between the user and system resources. Software designed to run single applications, social networking, e-commerce, and productivity contrasts with system software (operating systems). They rely on APIs to access device capabilities, such as location services or push notifications, for instance, abstracting the intricacies of hardware. As a practical example, a fitness app called Run scope uses the Health API on Android to get sensor data, showing what application software uses services offered by the OS to satisfy user demands.

 Managing Databases

Databases are crucial for applications that need to persist data. Relational databases (MySQL) organize data in tables and allow complex virtual queries using SQL, whereas NoSQL databases (MongoDB) scale unstructured data (Coreteka, 2023). For instance, a blogging platform may implement PostgreSQL to handle user posts and comments, maintaining ACID compliance for transactional consistency. Due to indexing and caching, DBMS has optimized performance, and there are security mechanisms such as encryption to protect sensitive user data persistently.

Network Architecture and Security

Networked Ecosystem Client-Server Model: Web and mobile applications in the Client-Server ecosystem. APIs enables interaction between a front-end client and a back-end server, usually via HTTP/HTTPS. This is built on the network security model: Transport Layer Security (TLS) encodes data on the wire while firewalls, intrusion detection systems — the list goes on — keep threats at bay. Scalability comes through content delivery networks (CDNs) and load balancers to generate appetite on even traffic spikes. To illustrate, a video-streaming application uses CDNs to share media content worldwide while minimizing offload latency through edge computing.

Conclusion

Web and mobile applications are smaller examples of IT’s nature as a discipline that spans multiple parts of the framework, integrating hardware, software, and networking principles. Their development reflects computing history, from vacuum tubes to quantum computing. As these patterns become increasingly sophisticated, understanding their underpinnings, from database management to network protection, remains critical for developers and IT professionals. Emerging technologies like these upcoming web tools and decentralized web architectures will push the conversation between how applications are structured and the foundational technologies on which they are built to new heights, ensuring relevancy in a technology landscape that shifts frequently.

References:

 

zyBooks. (2025). Zybooks.com. https://learn.zybooks.com/zybook/TEC101:_Fundamentals_of_Information_Technology_&_Literacy_(TED2505A)/chapter/2/section/10

 

Nath, S. (2024). Enhancing High-Level Language Concept Comprehension through a Notional Machine Approach of Assembly Language Education. Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 1–18.

 

Coluccio, A., Ieva, A., Riente, F., Roch, M. R., Ottavi, M., & Vacca, M. (2022). RISC-Vlim, a RISC-V Framework for Logic-in-Memory Architectures. Electronics (2079-9292), 11(19), 2990. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11192990

 

Coreteka. (2023, November 29). Fundamentals of Web Application Development. [Coreteka]. https://coreteka.com/blog/fundamentals-of-web-application-development/

 

‌Coluccio, A., Ieva, A., Riente, F., Roch, M. R., Ottavi, M., & Vacca, M. (2022). RISC-Vlim, a RISC-V Framework for Logic-in-Memory Architectures. Electronics, 11(19), 2990. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11192990

‌