What is Web Development?
Most of us have come across various websites. There are many different types of websites. School and college websites may be more technical and information oriented while shopping and entertainment websites may be more user friendly and leisure oriented. But how are these websites made from scratch? Who makes these websites? And how do these websites work so seamlessly and efficiently?
The process of building a website, creating and maintaining them is known as web development. Many sub-aspects fall under web development. These include web design, web publishing, web programming, and database management. The word web development is made up of two words, web and development. Web means to all the webpages, sites and programs that can be found and work on the internet. Development means building something from scratch.
The term development is usually used for when a person actually creates, constructs and programs these websites. All the websites a person may have used, they have been created by many web developers burning the midnight oil, making sure the websites performed properly and provided a great user-experience. Web developers design these sites by writing lines of code and use a variety of programming languages. The programming languages may differ based on the tasks they’re performing and the platforms they are working with.
Why is website development so important?
As humans, we pride ourselves on having phenomenal adaptation and technological skills. Within the past few decades, humanity has made a huge shift from physical connections to internet and online connections. Most lifestyles are digitally driven and a tremendous amount of professional work happens online itself. We have had little choice but to adapt to this advancing technology. Here’s where web development plays a major role. Humans are lazy creatures. We fancy when we can click on a small button and access huge amounts of information. This is what millions of people do when they use the internet everyday.
Web development is a great way to let people know of certain services and products. Displaying all the required information with high-quality images and text which catches the readers eyes, a well thought out website will definitely attract more users. Making services and products as appealing as possible to the people will influence your company a lot.
Website development also has greater importance as it can help you communicate with the audience. This in turn will generate more business. A website also improves connectivity. A website facilitates things like expanding reach of a company and attracting more visitors. A website with a friendly user interface and fast responsiveness is very useful for generating users. Many people prefer sites which are easy to navigate and have working and efficient user-interfaces. This increases both the organic traffic to the site and the site’s exposure. A website is a very straightforward method to show a company’s credibility. Website design should be handled and done in the best way possible and by experts. A professional website speaks volumes about a business or company. With the expertise of web developers, you can add your skills, credentials, experience, expertise and more in a single place. This will earn the trust and confidence of users and will even serve as a reference point.
Web development plays a huge role in successful marketing.
What are the types of Web Development?
Web development can be front-end, back-end or full-stack.
Front-end development means the client facing side of web development. It refers to the interface or the portion of the app or website the user sees when they interact with the app. So, we can say that a front end developer is responsible for the way the website looks and “feels” like to users. To become a front end developer it is necessary to have a clear understanding of programming languages such as HTML, CSS and Javascript as well as frameworks like React, Bootstrap, Backbone, AngularJS, and EmberJS.
There are many job profiles for front-end development if you wish to make a career in it. Titles like Front-End Developer, Front-End Engineer, CSS/HTML Developer, Front-End Web Designer are up for grabs.
Back-end development deals with how a product works. If front-end developers focus on how the product looks to users, back end developers literally work on the back-end. They’re responsible for overseeing what’s under the hood and how a program works. These include database interactions, user authentication, server, network and hosting configuration.
They have to ensure the functionality of the site. They have to work on improving its speed and responsiveness. They must have thorough knowledge of how to build servers and modern frameworks. They must also know how to manage data and databases on different systems. Back-end developers use server-side languages. These include PHP, Ruby, and Python, as well as tools including MySQL, Oracle, and Git.
Full-stack developers are someone who is familiar with both front-end and back-end development. They are familiar with working with all layers of development. Full-stack developers are the fourth most in-demand jobs in technology. There are many people who consider themselves full-stack developers. 48.2 percent consider themselves Full-Stack Developers. It seems that now full-stack developers are required to possess a broad skillset. It is becoming important for aspiring developers to have a skill set in both front-end and back-end development.
The demand for web developers is expected to grow by 15% by 2026. There will never be a better time to dive into this career option and explore it.
Some Web Development Frameworks
Some web development frameworks make it very easy for one to make a fully functional website. They come with pre-built features and functionalities which deliver high performance. These frameworks also help in reducing the margin of human error as they include the finest engineering technology. Eventually, there is a lower number of errors in the final code.
The web development frameworks also come with pre-designed templates to complete redundant programming tasks with ease. These tools save a humongous amount of time for developers and lets them focus on core programming. With better reliability and framework, it is ensured that your project will not get stuck in between. Some web development frameworks are
- Angular – First introduced in 2009, Angular used JavaScript as its programming language. It was then transformed in 2016 and now uses Typescript instead of JavaScript. It is famous for developing dynamic client-side web pages. However, it contains many professional functions which may be complicated. There is a steep learning curve and the processing may be slower.
- Vue.Js (Frontend)- This is another popular web development framework which works on the front-end side. It is used to build single page apps. It has numerous tools which can be used to create functional user interfaces. It can even be integrated with third party tools and solutions.
- React (Frontend) – It is basically a JS library released by Meta. It is mostly used to create single page frontend applications. Apart from this, it even supports development of mobile applications which many other frameworks do not support. It is easy to integrate with other libraries. However, it has a complicated structure and the documentation part is not well organised.
- Ember (Frontend) – Ember has earned the title of being the best JavaScript framework many times now. It has very out-of-the-box features which can be used to develop extremely high end and high functioning applications. Ember is even used by tech giants who lead the technological industry, companies like Netflix, Google and Microsoft use Ember. It delivers extremely high performance. It even supports code debugging, the documentation is very well-maintained and extensive. However, it has a steep learning curve and is not very suitable for smaller projects.
- Django (Frontend and Backend)- Django is a very prominent Python framework. If you work in the development sector, you may have heard about Django. It has a very high demand among web developers and businesses. It is one of the finest web development frameworks which can be used to build on both front end and back end functions of the applications. Huge corporations like Instagram and NASA use Django to handle their back end operations. It guarantees faster development and can create secure and robust applications. It has a well organised documentation and has an available inbuilt authentication tool.
The web development sector is sure to grow. The best of web development is yet to come. In coming years, there is going to be a huge demand for web developers as the entire world shifts online. As technology advances, web development will reach new heights and will definitely be one of the top career options in the world.
