Understanding Front-End & Back-End: Basic Concepts

‍Introduction

Understanding the front-end and back-end is the first fundamental step in becoming a developer. With a billion-dollar tech industry growing rapidly, many have probably considered sliding into the world of the future by becoming a developer who makethey design websites just as the name suggestss everytechnology-supported platform come true. And whether one chooses to take that path or not, most likely you have heard the words “front-end” ad “back-end” anyway. 

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What is Front-end?

Just like a sock puppet show, the talking creatures mouthing their lines, creating a story in front of a nicely decorated background, that's the front-end. A front-end developer works on the part that the users see and interact with. It is what otherwise is known as the “client-side” of a website or web application. 

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F-E Job description

Knowing front-end skills allows you to focus on parts of the front-end or become a front-end developer as a whole. By now, you must still be confused as to what that means, so let’s dive into a few best front-end jobs available in the market today.

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Web designer: This is a very broad title, but just as the name suggests, they design websites. In one place, a web designer can be in charge of creating how the website looks on Adobe Photoshop and never touch the code. In other places, a web designer designs the look of the website or web app and then is responsible for coding the HTML and CSS to go along with it.

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User Interface (UI) designer: UI and UX always go together, but you can focus on UI alone and become a UI designer. They design the visual aspect of a website or web application and may know a little bit about the programming languages to communicate more efficiently with the front-end developer who will then implement those visual elements.

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User eXperience (UX) designer: To know UX it’s not necessary to know UI and vice versa, but they always go hand in hand and the people working on these two sections will work together very closely. A UX designer ensures that the experience, from little animations to how smooth the website runs, is satisfying and complete for users. They do a lot of research and testing to bring the best experience when using the website or web app. Read more about UI & UX here. 

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Front-end developer: By knowing some programming languages well, you can create a completed website without the back-end. Yes, it is possible, however, limiting. The website they create will be called a static website, the pages will stay the same, and there’s no database to store information. It’s boring if you need something more magical, but is more than enough if you just need to display information! 

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Tools & Technologies for Front-End Development

Front-end developers work on all of the aspects that users will interact with including text, font, images, graphs, tables, videos, menus, and navigation panes. Take a look at the three main languages and tools that you need to know well to become a front-end developer.

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HTML: Standing for HyperText Markup Language, which displays content on the page such as buttons, links, headings, paragraphs, and lists. It is the main structural component of all websites and web apps. Without HTML, the web page will not exist.

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CSS: This stands for Cascading Style Sheet, which is responsible for any styling of the web page including colors, layouts, and animations. Having CSS will add responsiveness and accessibility, which is important for user experience. 

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JavaScript: This programming language is a bit more advanced, and allows users to interact with the web page. JavaScript is not limited to building websites but also online games, mobile apps, and more.

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Frameworks: They are tools that help JavaScript and CSS work the way developers want them to. Adopting the right web app framework is crucial for companies to stay competitive. Some of the popular frameworks are ReactJS, jQuery, Anime.js, D3.js, and many more.

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Developer tools and software: Additional tools and software, although aren’t necessary to code a website or web application, allow you to work more efficiently and start your career towards success. An example of a developer's software is version control which tracks and controls changes to the source code.

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Roles and responsibilities

• Analyze the client-side performance of a webpage to understand the user experience
• Understand how to effectively work and collaborate on a software project
• Imagine, create, and deploy interactive and mobile-friendly applications for the web
• Design, create, and modify static web pages that conform to HTML5 specifications
• Work with the back-end developers to pair both of your parts together

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What is Back-end?

Taking the same sock puppet show, the people crouching down moving their hands placed inside these socks are reading the lines of memory, that’s the back-end. It’s also known as the “server-side” of a website or web application. More recently, however, the back-end plays with the cloud as well. They can also create services that process business logic and access other resources such as databases, file servers, cloud servers, and more. These services can be accessed and used not only on the “server-side” but also on the “client-side”.

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B-E Job description

Much like front-end, you can choose your focus in back-end development and hold various titles when knowing well the skills of a back-end developer. That includes grasping programming languages, and other tools and technologies involved.

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Back-end developer: This is the most common job after learning every skill necessary to become a back-end developer. They are in charge of building and maintaining the database, server, and business logic behind a website. They work with front-end developers to build a complete website or web application.

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Java developer: These are the back-end developers who specialize in a specific programming language called Java. They will be responsible for every aspect of the code that involves Java and currently are in high demand in the enterprise app industry.

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DevOps engineer: This title is given to IT generalists who have wide-ranging knowledge of development and operations. What they do depends on the company but in general, they do a combination of release engineering, infrastructure provisioning and management, system administration, and security.

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iOS engineer: You can probably guess, but an iOS engineer runs the gears for software, mobile app, or anything that runs on iOS. Responsibilities include defining, designing, and implementing features in the application as well as identifying deficiencies and fixing bugs in the code. 

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Tools & Technologies for Back-end Development

There is as much, if not more, to the back-end than there is to the front end. After all, it’s grinding the gears and doing all the heavy machinery behind the beautiful interface that front-end developers have created. 

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Programming languages: There are many more programming languages available and are required of back-end developers with some of the popular ones that any back-end developer knows: Python, Java, and PHP. Python can be used to write clear and logical code and is compatible with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. More on AI can be read here. Other programming languages for the back-end include Ruby, C#, and so on. Knowing front-end languages like HTML, CSS and JavaScript is also a bonus.

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Frameworks: They are the libraries for the programming languages and typically, there are specific frameworks for a specific language. For an adaptable language like Python, popular frameworks include Django and Flask. For JavaScript environments, developers are familiar with NodeJS and ExpressJS.

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Databases and servers: Since back-end developers control access, storage, and recovery of information, you need to know how to stack and recover from databases. Then, the database will run on servers that provide data upon request. Some of the popular databases include MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB.

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API: This stands for Application Program Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. To put it simply, when you use a social media platform, send an instant message, or check the weather, you’re using an API.

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Accessibility and security clearance: There is a series of network protocols and web security to learn if you want to become a back-end developer. Since you are working with sensitive data from clients, knowing how to secure databases and servers will be a crucial part of your job.

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Roles and responsibilities

• Use language features appropriately for simple algorithmic tasks
• Propose a viable fix to a specific bottleneck in a provided sample application
• Analyzing, coding, processing data, and detecting bugs and errors
• Involve in the construction of the frameworks or architecture of the system
• Work closely with frontend developers
• Learn to make applications faster, more secure, more stable, and more capable
• Increase the processing speed, response time, and efficiency
• Responsible for managing APIs across devices
• Become adept at problem-solving and interacting with behind-the-scenes technologies
• Troubleshoot and resolve performance errors in a web application
• Train and provide ongoing support to client teams
• Perform Quality Assurance (QA) testing

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Full-stack

If you’re still wondering about whether to settle on becoming a front-end or back-end developer, why not… both? Those well-versed in both creating the “client-side” and “server-side” are called full-stack developers. They get to experience the best of both worlds and see their whole project come to fruition. 

In some cases, full-stack developers work directly with the clients as they will be in charge from A to Z in the project. To become one, you will have to know a specific back-end programming language and know all three HTML, CSS, Java, and maybe one or more other languages. You won’t have to write all of the code, but you can graph every aspect properly to see the irrationalities of the overall product and handle them. 

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Benefits of becoming a developer

The flexibility and demand for this position make it one of the most sought jobs. We need a developer everywhere, across various industries and locations. You can work on it as a freelance job, for a non-profit organization, or as an in-house employee depending on whatever interests you. Because of the rising technological availability, working as a developer means you can work remotely. 

And not to mention, the pay is totally a plus. 

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Final thoughts

Whether you decide to become a front-end developer or back-end developer or go all in and become a full-stack developer, hopefully, this article has given you a clear understanding of the related terms. At Dirox, we provide software development services with our experienced and collaborative team!

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Consult with us to learn more about smartsourcing your project to Dirox!

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