To date, most web sites have been programmed using HTML editors. Hypertext Markup Language was the original method developed for the creation of web sites. Requiring almost as much knowledge as any other programming language, HTML has developed and matured over time to offer more and more sophisticated facilities and functions. Together with other technologies to allow sound, video and document transfer, the Internet is now a rich environment which is fundamental to day to day living, whether at home or in the office.

As the cost of hosting sites has fallen, that of hiring programmers to write web sites has risen, and there are a number of ways to reduce the cost of employing a programmer.

Rapid Application Development Systems (RAD).

Fundamentally, a tool or set of tools designed specifically to assist in the development of web pages. For simple text pages a text editor will suffice, but most systems require something much more sophisticated for the creation of animated, graphically rich web pages with a variety of media content. The most commonly known RAD is the Adobe Suite of applications : Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, etc.