A survey on Network Application Frameworks

Application frameworks are a key resource in today’s ever-growing and rapid application development. Different frameworks for various development fields are always com-ing up with rapid innovations. The scope of this article is to analyze few such frameworks, from both the devel-oper’s and the user’s point of view, that not only help, but also support more efficient and modernized web and net-work application development that utilizes latest program-ming paradigms, features, libraries and tools. We have cho-sen four application frameworks for review in this article. Twisted, a python based network application framework for writing multi-protocol internet applications by exploitation of same tool base for all protocols. RealPeer, a Java based framework for development of p2p applications, allowing the developer to first simulate and then deploy the same ap-plication in a real environment. Merb, a Ruby based frame-work for developing web applications different from Rails, focuses more on plugin-oriented approach for optimized and light weight development, and Fuego, a mobile middleware framework for mobile network events and messaging. This article analyzes the features these frameworks offer, and de-scribes the advantages and disadvantages of these features and contrast with similar technologies, and then concluding with some future trends and needed improvements in current framework development