Have you ever been fascinated by seeing different websites or animations? It must have come to your mind how just on a single click, you get to see beautiful well designed, constructed webpages providing tons of information instantaneously.
Well, the people who make this all possible are “Web Developers.”
Talking about Web Development Career let me tell share an impressive stat, as of 1st January 2020, there are more than 1.7 Billion Websites on the web. And each of these requires people to build, develop, analyze. Hmm,Some serious job security. A website is an integral part of any business or a company. Nowadays, even medium-scaled shops like a cloth shop, a furniture store have their website. No one would have imagined this 5 years ago that these type of stores would have their website. This further proves that web development is very critical for any business, thus proving there is no shortage of developer jobs.
What is Web Development? What to learn in Web Development? How to learn Web Development?
These are the questions any newbie stepping his feet into the field of web development has, and then as most of us, he stumbles upon the internet to find out. There he encounters the three most frequently used terminologies in web development, Front-End, Back-End, and Full-Stack Development. Let’s dive into all three better understanding; after all, it is a career choice you are going to make, well just joking! It is not necessary that if you are one of them, then you cannot be the other. After all,each of them is related to one other.
What is a Front-End Developer?
The first thing that meets your eyes when you visit a website and everything you interact with, dropdowns, buttons text boxes, and also the different animations and styles is an output of loads and loads of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code which is presented to you by the browser.
Tech Stack: Front-End developers are mainly to write or develop the code for the part of the website which the user sees. Whenever anyone searches the term, Front-End web development, he comes across the terms HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it is because these three are the most popular languages to write the code among the Front-End developers. In addition to these, there are few frameworks like Bootstrap, AngularJS, which helps us to make our pages look good, which can include adding different icons, dropdowns, navigation bars, and many more such utilities. Also, having fluidity in jQuery is highly encouraged since it reduces the complexity of the JavaScript code and hence saves much time. Using all the above tools and frameworks, Front-End developers work in sync with the Back-End developers, graphic designers, and SEO engineers to design the best page suitable for the project, which can provide the best user interface to anyone who visits the website. To be short, “Front-End Development brings out the best creativity in you”!
Okay! So now, let’s jump into what it takes to become a Back-End Developer.
What is a Back-End Developer?
When you land up into a website, it is not there to just please the eyes. It needs perform a lot of work and applications. You need to be able to check stuff, buy things online, log in, see the data, and interact with the interface. It is where a Back-End developer comes in. He oversees all the behind the scene activities happening on a webpage. The main components of the Back-End of a website are a server, a database, and an application. A Back-End developer is the backbone of these components, which makes the very existence of the Front-End of the pages possible.
Tech Stack: There are several frameworks like PHP, Python, Java, and Ruby, which help the developers manage and run the application. The most popular language for back-end developers is Node.Js and Django. Languages like SQL, MongoDB, and ORACLE are among the popular ones to manage, edit run, save their database. Among the server providers, there are many options, Amazon provides cloud at a very minimal rate, there is HEROKU, and if it is a small website you want to try and deploy, we have the option like Netlify and other sites which give us the option to host the site. However, they don’t give us our personal domain for free. Back-End Developers use all the tools mentioned above to create and develop applications in sync with the Front-End developers to get the best output possible. However, Back-Enders also need to meet the marketing team, stakeholders, the technical design team so that he can implement all of their needs in the website application. So this is all in and out of Back-End Development. It is a demanding career but an interesting one to pursue with lots and lots to learn and explore.
Now let’s get into my favourite domain, Yep, its Full-Stack Web Development!
What is a Full-Stack Developer?
Many highly skilled developers say that if you intend to be a developer, go for Full-Stack Development and be the captain of your ship both front and the end. Develop the Front-End and the Back-End by yourself, eradicating the need for any complaints or excuses with the developer of the Front-End or vice-versa. A Front-End developer needs to know a little of the Back-End and vice versa, so why not learn both and be a complete package. A Full-Stack developer reduces the cost of the project and therefore increases his cost and utility. One of the significant gig that a Full-Stack developer has in debugging the error. Since both his Front-End and the Back-End was done by himself, he has better knowledge where what code lies and any error found can be rectified efficiently.
Tech Stack: I am sure everyone has something in their mind about the tech stack. It is straightforward isn’t it? The combination of the tech stack of both Front-End and back stack is what is essential for full-stack development. Yes, the theory is correct. To become a full-stack developer, a person needs to be highly skilled in all the tools and frameworks of both the Front-End and Back-End development. Full-Stack Developers work on the Back-End of a website, but they are also fluent with the Front-End interfaces, and development. In addition to it, they must be skilled in using APIs, configuring servers, so it is not as easy as it sounds.
TRANSLATION!! A career in Web Development gives you many doors, but it is not as if you go through one; you cannot turn to others. But no matter which one you choose the ability to adapt quickly to changes, having good knowledge and skills of the frameworks and a right eye and ear is what makes your work seamless.
I hope this article would be fruitful in helping you learn something about what web development is, how to get started in it, and what are the career options in this field.
If you want to start learning Web Development and you have zero knowledge about it, I would recommend you to visit the below mentioned course. This is the one I found very helpful.
- Web Developer Bootcamp by Colt Steele on Udemy- One of the most popular Web Developer course covering both Front-End and Back-End along with some wonderful projects.
- FreeCodeCamp - The best free web development learning source out there.
- YouTube- YT had to be here. There are some awesome channels like Traversey Media, FreecOdeCamp, Dev Ed.
So, what are you waiting for! Take your laptop and start learning!!