Web development is everywhere, from this blog to your favorite social media sites and apps. The technology behind it is constantly changing and improving to meet user needs. There are different types of web developers, including those who focus on the front end of a website (“front-end devs”) and those who code the entire site (“back-end”). But all have one thing in common: coding.
Web development has become an umbrella term for creating a website, including design and programming. Design defines the look and feel of a site, while programming determines how it functions. Typically, web designers and web developers have different skill sets that they bring to the table. Read on Extreme Digital Promotions for more information.
Web designers are responsible for everything the user sees on a webpage, from photos and images to fonts and color schemes. They use a variety of programs that can be found in the Adobe Creative Suite to create flat, visual representations of what a website will look like once code is applied, called mockups. These are a crucial part of the process as they allow the designer to communicate to the developer what they want the final product to look like.
It’s important for a web designer to be aware of and understand the latest trends in web design, including responsiveness and mobile-first design. Having knowledge of best practices and frameworks, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, is also critical. In addition, a web designer should have a strong grasp of visual design principles. These can include grid systems, the golden ratio, color theory, and other basic concepts that have been established over time as common conventions in web design.
A good web developer will take the designer’s mockups and turn them into working websites that can be used on a variety of devices. This will involve a lot of coding using programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They will also work with content management systems (CMS) to add functionality and a backend database to store the information that will appear on the website.
It’s also important for a web developer to understand the best practices in front-end development so they can make changes and updates easily once the design is complete. This includes understanding the nuances of front-end design, such as how to deal with responsiveness and how to use front-end libraries and frameworks that will help them build sites faster and more efficiently. Having this expertise can mean the difference between a website that works well on all devices and one that looks dated or outdated on each platform.
Coding
When you go to a website, a lot of complicated things happen in the background. These include the transfer of data from the site to your computer and the rendering of that information in a way that you can read. All of this is made possible by coding. Web development is a wide field that encompasses a variety of different programming languages. In general, though, a web developer is someone who can take a concept and turn it into an interactive online experience.
The most important part of learning web development is having a clear idea of what you want to accomplish. This will help you set priorities, decide what features to build first, and determine how to structure your site’s navigational layout. It’s also a good idea to consult with teams across your organization, especially those who will be using the website for their work. For example, the SEO and content strategy teams will have valuable input into how a website should be structured.
Before you can start coding, it’s essential to understand how web development works and the difference between front-end and back-end web development. At its most basic, a website is just a collection of files stored on a server that is connected to the Internet. You can then load that website into a browser, like Chrome or Safari, on your computer. These computers, which are called “client devices,” are identified by their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
These IP addresses allow websites to communicate with each other via a network of servers that connect the world’s computers and networks. To make this connection possible, a website must have an IP address and a language to translate the site’s code into instructions for the server to send to the client device.
This is where HTML, CSS, and JavaScript come into play. All three are coding languages that are used to create and style websites. They can be learned by taking an online course like Treehouse, which offers a range of courses on various aspects of web development. Other options are coding bootcamps, which can give you an intensive learning experience in as little as six months.
Server-Side Programming
Server-side programming is done on the web server (which hosts a website or web application) using a program such as PHP, Python, Perl, Java, or Ruby. These programs provide a back-end for the website and allow it to do things like search databases, send information through communication services, or render dynamic web pages. Server-side scripting is the foundation of many popular websites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
When a user clicks on a link or runs a search, a request is sent via HTTP from the browser to the web server. The server processes this and delivers suitable HTTP replies to the browser; this is what makes dynamic websites possible. Server-side scripting is also responsible for creating application programming interfaces, or APIs.
In addition to providing dynamic content, web applications also often need to deal with different browser capabilities and behaviors. A key example is the ability to store login details, recognize returning visitors, and tailor website content or actions based on user preferences or choices.
Most of the time, business logic for dynamic web pages is not executed on the server side but on the client side; this includes elements such as rendering and displaying the page, handling user input, and running JavaScript. Web developers often use a wide range of client-side programming languages and web frameworks, which are collections of functions, objects, and rules, to help streamline development and simplify different types of tasks.
One of the biggest differences between server-side and client-side processing is access to resources. Server-side processes run on the server and have access to all of the resources it has to offer, including CPU, memory, and storage, while client-side processes only have access to the device that a user is visiting the site on. This means that the server-side code needs to be more efficient than the client-side code in order to make a website work effectively and reliably on all devices. There are two main reasons why this is the case. One is that server-side code can use the power of the server to perform a lot of work in parallel, which would be difficult or impossible for client-side code to achieve. The other is that the server-side code can take advantage of functions built into the browser and communications software, which reduces the number of requests it has to make.
Back-End Programming
A website needs to have both front-end and back-end programming to function. Web development is the process of creating, building, and maintaining websites and web applications online. While the term “web development” may also be used to describe the job of designing features and functionality of apps (web design), it’s generally reserved for the actual construction and programming of sites, including the back-end and database management.
There are three basic types of web developers: front-end, back-end, and full-stack. Front-end web developers focus on what users see and interact with. They bring a designer’s designs to life and build dynamic elements to provide an immersive experience on desktop or mobile devices. For example, when you hover over a button on our homepage, the graphic enlarges and the text shrinks—that’s a front-end developer at work.
They use a variety of programming languages to create these dynamic elements, including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript. These are called “client-side programming languages” because they’re run in the browser to produce the website. They also use libraries and frameworks to speed up the production process and make it more efficient. For instance, there are linters that take the rules of your code and highlight places where you haven’t followed them correctly or minifiers that remove whitespace to reduce the size of files so they download more quickly.
On the back end, it’s the server that’s responsible for responding to what a user sends from their own computer. So when you submit a form on a site, that information gets sent to the web server and stored in an organized database. The back-end developer engineers what’s happening behind the scenes—the server, the application, and the database—to ensure that everything works together seamlessly.
A well-functioning, attractive, and engaging website is vital to the success of any business, so it’s not surprising that there’s a high demand for qualified web development professionals. If you’re interested in becoming a web developer, it’s important to have a learning mindset and stay up-to-date with the latest technologies. National University’s BSCS degree program balances a strong academic foundation with realistic design and implementation projects to provide the skills you need to pursue this exciting career.