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Front-end and Back-end are the two most popular terms used in web development. The difference between front-end and back-end development can seem a bit confusing, given their similarities in making websites function properly.
What is the difference between Front-End and Back-End?
A good analogy would be - the speedometer on a car dashboard showing the speed the car is travelling at, which can be called as the front-end, while the way how it displays that information i.e., by measuring rotation of the car's driveshaft, axle or wheel (which you cannot directly see), constitutes the back-end.
Simply put, the front-end developers work on what the user can experience, while back-end developers build the infrastructure that supports it. Like the two sides of the same coin, they both play different but equally important roles in the world of web development.
Front-End development
The Front-End development a.k.a “client-side” deals with what you experience and interact with when you use a website or an app i.e., the user interface elements like the navigation bars, drop-down menus, pages, links, buttons etc. A front-end developer creates sites and web applications that render on the client-side.
But not everything “front-facing” is done by front-end developers. When we talk about the visual appeal of a website, the design and layout, or the plan to use colors and themes on the website and size of buttons on the page etc., that’s usually designed by a Web designer, or a UI designer. The frontend developer takes these designs and turns it into a functional and interactive website, by using the three main frontend languages like HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), thus creating what you call as the user-experience.
Front-end devs may also use graphic design programs like Photoshop or Sketch, along with code editing tools like Notepad or Eclipse
Front-End tools
Apart from the basic front-end languages, there are Web frameworks such as Bootstrap, Django, Angular and JavaScript libraries like jQuery, React, and CSS preprocessors like SASS and LESS.
The purpose of web frameworks and front-end libraries 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.
If you just need a professional company website to inform your customers about your products/services, with some related images and videos – just the front-end development skills and tools should be sufficient to build your website (referred to as static websites). A static site is something that doesn't require any information to be stored in a database. The pages will almost always stay the same, unless it's time for a redesign.
But when you are talking about websites like e-commerce websites, or company websites that can furnish customer orders online which requires details like product quantities, purchase history, user profiles, billing options and addresses, etc., you’ll need back-end development skills to manage these data and need back-end components to make it a dynamic website.
Back-End development
Often known as “server-side” development, the Back-End development deals with the internal workings of a website not visible to the user, by making use of databases, servers, and applications, that work behind the scenes, to deliver information to the user. The back-end developer is responsible for making the website or apps render on the server-side. The back-end stores and organizes data, ensuring everything on the client-side actually works. It communicates with the front-end, sending and receiving information to be displayed as a web page.
When you fill out a contact form, type in a web address, or make a purchase (any user interaction on the client-side), your browser sends a request to the server-side, which returns information in the form of front-end code that the browser can interpret and display.
Most of the glitches, errors and slow loading times you see on websites are as a result of problems occurring in the back-end
Back-End process
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. Some of the database that are widely used are MySQL, SQL Server, PostgresSQL, and Oracle.
A website or an app will still contain front-end code, but it also has to be built using back-end languages are C#, C++, Ruby, PHP, Java, .Net, Perl, Scala and Python that a database can recognize.
These programming languages often run on frameworks that simplify the web development process. For example, Rails, is a framework written in Ruby. Ruby on Rails is a popular technology for building dynamic web apps that makes the process much faster. Other popular frameworks used are: Express, Django, Laravel and Spring.
Full Stack development
There are developers who are experts in both the frontend and backend languages and frameworks, and are also proficient in servers, networks and hosting environments (the full stack of technology that makes up a website). They are called as full stack developers. These developers can create sites and web applications that render both on the client-side (front-end) and the server-side (back-end).
JavaScript, one of the fundamental web technologies, is currently a well-liked option generally for full-stack development
The biggest advantage of having a full stack developer working for an organization is that he can work on both the front-end and backend, and evaluate the capabilities and potentialities of your website or app in real-time, without having to check with another developer, if what you want to develop is possible or not.
Thus, according to a companies needs and requirements, and their business model, they can partner with companies like UPDATE to provide front-end or back-end development services.
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