You might have heard people saying web design and web development altogether as to mean a single process or sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably. First of all, the two terms or processes are entirely different. Just consider this; a web developer is an engineer who makes all the parts of a machine work while a Web designer is a guy who the machine’s paint job.
The discussion here is not about who plays a more important role in the overall website, but to understand first, the difference between the two terms, and then an in-depth understanding of both the processes.
What is the WEB DEVELOPMENT?
As the name suggests, it is all about ‘developing’ a website except for the ‘design’ part of that website. The closest a web developer gets to a web designer is in the ‘Front-End Development of the website. Web development is making a website functional through extensive sequences of coding and programming.
Everything on the internet, from a simple static web page to the biggest of the websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., and all the important internet tools that we use, are thanks to web developers.
Now, web development can be categorized into three main layers.
Three Main Layers of WEB DEVELOPMENT
- The Front-end Layer
- The Back-end Layer
- The DataBase
You might have heard these names if any of your friends are tech-savvy or if you might be a computer geek. Not that complex to understand, but we are going to discuss each of the layers in detail now.
1. The Front-end Layer
This is the user-end that is at the ‘front’ of a user. Whatever you may experience directly on a website and the direct interactions with a visitor of a website is referred to as the “Front-End” layer. It’s not only the job of the ‘designer’ to make a website look user-friendly but actually, if the developer does not succeed in his scripting or coding then all the design efforts go to vain because designing should directly be linked with the actual functionality of a webpage. Everything that you see on a website including the menus, buttons, navigations, animations, etc. is developed by a web developer. The closest a developer gets to a designer is in the Front-end or the client-side layer.
A web developer doesn’t need to be an expert in all three areas of web development. Most beginners start their development career only with front-end development because it’s easy to learn and also fun.
There are certain languages that a front-end developer uses for the complete development of the layer.
These languages include HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
HTML is used to design the basic foundation of a website. The structure of a website on which everything stands is developed on HTML and therefore it is known as the standard language of Web-development.
CSS is all about looks. How everything in the HTML scripting will look, is defined in the CSS. The fonts, animations, colors, and themes on a webpage are all developed in the CSS language.
JavaScript is the brain of your website. In JavaScript, all the functionality of the website is developed through scripting, coding, or programming. This is the mother of all languages in the development world. All the learning of web development starts with JavaScript.
Now comes the privy part of a website – the Back-end layer.
2. The Back-End Layer
A user or a visitor cannot see or access this side of the website. It involves all the background processes required to make a website functional and keep it running smoothly. A developer has the access to this site and thus it is also known as the server-side. Sometimes you type a URL of a website and it fails to load showing an error something like “the server of the website did not respond” or “the server of the webpage/URL you requested is currently down”. So, this tells us all about why a certain website is down sometimes, the server-side might be under some maintenance changes or any technical issue with the server may be the reason.
Back-end development is more complex and that is why many web developers only move towards learning it after a good experience in front-end development. But it is not compulsory; one can directly start to learn and to develop the back-end if he is interested more in the programming side.
As we described JavaScript as the most important language in web development, this will be more understandable when we get to know that the back-end development also incorporates Java. Although, there are many other languages and runtime environments JavaScript is still preferred because of the very fact that a developer can do both Front and Back-end development through this scripting.
3. The DataBase
All the Web development services need a database server that is used for the storage and then easy retrieval of the data. The data is essential to keep the functionality of the website smooth. If there is any glitch in the database and somehow any information or data is lost, it will affect the whole website and the website can remain down for several days until that database is not recovered or repaired.
The Web Designing Essentials
The whole web development process begins only after the web designer is done with his job – that is to design the aesthetics of a website. This design acts as a content brief for the developer and the developer starts to develop the website following the design. Along with the look of the website, Web designing also adds functionality to the website by making the design easy to link with the scripting and all the coding that is typically done by the developer.
Web designers usually work on Adobe Photoshop to design the visual elements and the overall layout of the website. A professional graphic designer can also design a website for you, but a basic understanding of web development is essential for the designer, otherwise, the design might look very appealing but practically it can get very difficult to develop the functionality in that design which is designed without the development knowledge.