What is Web Development?
We spend hours using the internet, various applications and sites and we rarely stop to think about the process of creating applications for the internet. Everything that is created for the internet falls under the category of web development, as it works on the web, of course.
However, that doesn’t explain the details of what web development is and why it is important for us. Let us take a closer look and see why web development is really important for us.
Web Development – The Modern World
Web development is necessary and powers all of our experiences on the internet. Every application, site and service we use online is made through the process of web development. This is an important topic to understand, mostly because we interact with the internet on a daily basis, using at least two or three applications and services per day, sometimes at the same time.
Web development consists of two distinct parts, the front-end and the back-end. Their names are suggestive and almost self-explanatory, but we will not leave things in the air.
Front-end Development – The User Side of Things
We all know how much people pay attention to visuals and the elements that they interact with. Whether a website, an application or service, the user experience is one of the most important things for anyone to overlook.
Front-end developers focus on what the user sees and interacts with. This means anything from the visuals, organization of the said visuals, the user experience, how it works, how intuitive it is, to the optimization of the said experience for different platforms, typically mobile and desktop.
Front-end development focuses on the client side of things.
Back-end Development – The Logic and Core
A site has to run on a server and whenever you pull something from a site, such as a request to open a new page, that request gets sent to the server and the server replies, giving you access to the page you requested. This is a crude explanation, but a site is powered by and stored on a server, and so is the logic for any other web service and application.
Back-end developers focus on databases, APIs, the core logic of a web application, service or site. They optimize the logic and make sure that every interaction runs smoothly and that the code runs well.
Both Are Needed
Web development requires both the back-end and front-end to work in unison if the user experience is going to be good. While your site might look good, it will not be a good experience if it loads slowly or processes search requests like a site from the 1990s.
Web development is the unison of the two subtypes of development, the front-end and the back-end, where both parts have to contribute equally for the entire process to work smoothly.
