I just started a contract job as a front end developer with one of the larger financial services companies in the US. My primary responsibility will be to convert the website over to Responsive Web Design.<p>Considering all the regulations that financial companies must adhere to, the technology choices available must be proven to be secure and mature. If I have any chance to influence the work environment there, I better also have data and proof to back up my claims.<p>The first thing they will do is choose a CMS that's either based on Java, such as Adobe CQ5, or something else developed by Oracle. Considering Java's continue problems on the client side with security, I'm not sure this would be the smartest move.<p>More importantly, as a front end dev, I have started playing with technologies like Node.js, Git, Sass, and bundles like Yeoman. I know there are also some Server-Side Javascript packages such as Node.js, Backbone/Underscore, Ember, Angular and others. I'm not quite sure if most of these could work in the Enterprise environment considering the compliance and security regulations.<p>I am pushing for an investigation to use more open source like the above, and I hope to get this company to create a Github repo where we can give back to the community as well. I think it would be amazing to create an API for the customers to use to create apps to make the services better, although I realize this might not be a smart idea considering it's people's financial data or the likes.<p>This is probably a little too ambitious for me to take on alone, but I'd love to hear your opinions and experience about what I could legitimately push to aid this transition. The department manager is very open to new ideas and really hopes I can step up and lead the way so I'd like to get your feedback. Thanks!
<i>Considering Java's continue problems on the client side with security, I'm not sure this would be the smartest move.</i><p>Java in the browser, and Java as a server-side runtime, are pretty different things. As far as I can tell, the various SecurityManager flaws that have been in the news lately, have little or no impact on Java when running on a backend server. But if you are considering applets or JWS as part of your system, that's a different story.
A few questions:<p>1) Why are they adamant they they use an "open source cms"?<p>2) What is the primary use of the website? I don't imagine that "one of the larger financial services companies in the US" would leave the restructuring of the website design to one individual. Is this simply an internal site to serve one function of the business?<p>3) I'd lean away from the Github idea for now. Financial institutions are typically last in line to try and lead others in that regard.