The frontend of a website is what you see and interact with on your browser. It can also be called *Client-side Web development. Front end developers are engaged in analyzing code, design, and debugging applications along with ensuring a seamless user experience. They manage what people first see in their browser. As a front end developer you are responsible for the look, feel and ultimately the design of the site.
Backend (or “server-side”) is the portion of the website you don’t see. It’s responsible for storing and organizing data, and ensuring everything on the client-side actually works. The backend communicates with the front-end, sending and receiving information to be displayed as a web page. This aspect of web development usually consists of three parts: a server, an application, and a database. In the backend side, you architect and build an application that runs on a single server, an environment you control, and then you either send to the browser an application using server-side rendering of the app and every client accesses that application, or you create an API that just distributes JSON data to the clients.
Frontend Development Tools
Frontend programming has its own unique set of challenges: the browser support of features, for example, the performance of an application on a low-end device. There are several tools and platforms available that can be used to develop the front end of a website and understanding which tools are best fit for any specific tasks. Enlisted below are Frontend Languages :
HTML: is the fundamental coding language that creates and organizes web content so it can be displayed by a browser. HTML is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language. It is the backbone of any website development process, without which a web page does not exist. Hypertext means that text has links, termed hyperlinks, embedded in it. When a user clicks on a word or a phrase that has a hyperlink, it will bring another web-page. A markup language indicates text can be turned into images, tables, links, and other representations. It is the HTML code that provides an overall framework of how the site will look.
CSS: is a language that accompanies HTML, and defines the style of a website’s content, such as layout, colors, fonts, etc. CSS is an acronym for Cascading Style Sheets. It controls the presentation aspect of the site and allows your site to have its own unique look. It does this by maintaining style sheets which sit on top of other style rules and are triggered based on other inputs, such as device screen size and resolution.
JavaScript: is a programming language used for more interactive elements like drop-down menus, modal windows, and contact forms on the frontend. JavaScript code can use the Document Object Model (DOM), provided by the HTML standard, to manipulate a web page in response to events, like user input and transform a static HTML page into a dynamic interface. Using a technique called AJAX, JavaScript code can also actively retrieve content from the web (independent of the original HTML page retrieval), and also react to server-side events as well, adding a truly dynamic nature to the web page experience.
In addition to basic front-end languages, you’ll come across frameworks like Bootstrap and Angular, as well as JavaScript libraries like jQuery, and CSS extensions like Sass and LESS. There’s a long list of resources like these, which support HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Their purpose is simply to make code (and the process of writing it) more manageable and organized by providing various tools and templates compatible with common coding languages.
Backend Development Tools
Backend development is completely different from the frontend. First, you exit the browser environment, which is freeing on one hand but can also be overwhelming. In the browser, the programming language choice is always JavaScript. Or a language that compiles to JavaScript, like TypeScript, Elm and others. For backend, you can use frameworks like
- Node which is based on JavaScript
- Django which is based on Python
- Laravel which is based on PHP
- Rails which is based on Ruby
- Phoenix which is based on Elixir
- Deno which is based on TypeScript
and many others, including more enterprise-oriented ecosystems like Java and .NET - not forgetting languages like Go and Rust too. Your website needs a database to manage all the customer and product information. A database stores website content in a structure that makes it easy to retrieve, organize, edit, and save data. It runs on a remote computer called a server. There are many different databases that are widely used, such as MySQL, SQL Server, PostgresSQL, and Oracle.
Should I Learn Frontend Or Backend Development, Or Both?
If you’re keen to learn web development but aren’t sure whether to go down the frontend or backend route, it’s important to consider the day-to-day tasks of each. If you like the idea of working with visual designs and bringing them to life, creating a first-class user experience, then you’ll probably enjoy working in the frontend. If you enjoy working with data, figuring out algorithms and coming up with ways to optimize complex systems, you might prefer to work as a backend developer.
To get started, check out these platforms: Freecodecamp,Udemy, Scotch, Codeacademy and many more... Also checkout Roadmap for a detailed path/guide for either Frontend or Backend.
Happy Coding...