Architecture · 2004–now · Web Boom
MVC web frameworks
Model-view-controller as the default web shape. Still how most server-rendered apps think.
MVC stuck because it maps cleanly to HTTP request cycles and junior hiring pools. Front-end frameworks renamed pieces but kept the separation instinct. It fails only when teams treat the pattern as permission to build god controllers.
Context
The browser ate the desktop
The web became the default delivery surface. LAMP and Rails made shipping cheap; Ajax made pages feel like apps; SOAP/SOA tried to enterprise-ify the wire. REST won by being debuggable with curl. This decade invented the modern product cadence — and the habit of treating every new framework as destiny.
Compare with
Related
Framework · 2004–now
Ruby on Rails
Convention over configuration. Taught a decade of frameworks how to ship MVPs — and how to hit scaling walls.
Framework · 2005–now
Django
Batteries-included Python web. Still the adult choice when you want an admin, auth, and ORM that behave.
Framework · 2013–now
React
Components and unidirectional data. Won the front-end by being good enough and having a gravitational ecosystem.