Beyond the act of creating and improving websites, Web Development is key for business strategies to reach wider audiences, users and clients.
Yet, having a great website requires more than a domain and some links, as both the front end back end are key for the process from the very beginning.
Often seen as opposites, both the front end and the back end of a website are key to ensuring the healthy and intuitive functioning of a website.
That’s why this article will discuss why both edges are fundamental for all businesses. Let’s take a look at this fascinating topic!
What is Web Development?
To sum it up, Web Development encloses the process of creating and maintaining websites and web applications.
Web Development skills and processes involve coding, designing and structuring the layout, functionality and User Experience (UX) of a site.
Likewise, this field must consider other elements, such as sitemaps, title hierarchy and a strong SEO Web Development structure to be findable by search engines.
What’s more, Web Development goes from simple static page web apps to complex and interactive dynamic websites, including Content Management Systems (CMS).
Currently, there are several visual-based Web Development hosting services available for teams, such as Webflow vs WordPress, to help teams deliver faster sites.
In all scenarios, it includes both front end back end (client-side and server-side, respectively) with different languages, frameworks and libraries.
Front vs Back End in Web Development
Rather than contrasting concepts, the front and back ends are two cohesive parts of Web Development.
When working with the backend, it updates affecting front end operations— and the same happens when you modify the front end structure.
When users enter commands in a site’s interface (the front-end), workflows start in both the front end back end of a digital solution.
The server side, for instance, verifies the gathered information and pulls needed data from the database to send it back to users.
Both edges of Web Development work in tandem to develop proper-functioning and easy-to-use systems, and both edges need each other to thrive.
Let’s check each side of Web Development in more detail, as well as the languages, frameworks and libraries that both often entail.
What is Front-End Development?
Front End Development (FE), also known just as frontend, is the client side of Web Development.
This edge focuses on designing and developing the “front face” or user-facing aspects of a website, such as its Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs).
While FE Development is often associated with design elements, such as a site’s colors and animation, it also encloses the proper enhancement of all interfaces’ functionalities.
A great example of front-end development is the actions a site takes when users click a specific button or complete a contact form.
While the design elements enclose how the button behaves when hovered, front end also encompasses the executed code to take users to another page when the button is clicked.
In terms of the languages used, the front end is mostly comprised of markup and style with HTML and CSS, respectively, with JavaScript as the most popular language.
HTML in Front Development
Being the backbone of any website, HTML (HyperText Markup Language) provides the overall structure for a site with tags to define different elements.
Most common HTML-defined elements include sections, headings, paragraphs and text and multimedia content.
With the tag-defined logic, HTML organizes and structure content for browsers to display in readable formats for both users and back end operations.
2. CSS in Web Development
Likewise, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) handles the visual appearance of a site by adding properties to HTML tags.
Used to enhance sites’ User Experiences, CSS helps make appealing and responsive design across devices by modifying elements like color, layouts, fonts and spacing.
3. JavaScript in Web Development
A fast and safe language, JavaScript is the go-to programming language for building front end User Interfaces (UIs).
While HTML and CSS are for structure markup and styling, JavaScript gives dynamism to websites, with a wide range of frameworks and libraries to boost its power.
With frameworks and libraries like React, Redux and Angular, teams enhance front-end development to build User Interfaces that users find intuitive and easy to use.
What is Back-End Development?
Also known as backend, Back End (BE) Development focuses on the server-side logic of a site.
The BE edge is responsible for building, optimizing and maintaining sites’ databases, business and network infrastructure so the client side works appropriately.
This scope includes areas with no direct user involvement, such as the creation and processing of Database Management Systems (DBMS).
Just like the front end, back end development works with frameworks and libraries to offer customized components and speed up and structure development processes.
Some of these include PHP, Python, Java and Querying Language like SQL.
What is Full Stack Development?
As its name suggests, full-stack development involves working on both edges of Web Development, leveraging both front end back end.
Full stack dev handles the whole Web Development process, from intuitive User Interfaces to databases, servers and application logic, with needed frameworks and libraries.
Since when modifying the backend it updates affecting front end operations and vice versa, full stack development eases transitions between ends for cohesive development.
How Do Front End and Back End Development Work Together?
There are several benefits to having defined front end back end development, and the first one is project stability.
With designated front end back end edges to take care of, it doesn’t affect one area if the other one needs more resources or modifications in chosen frameworks and libraries.
While some tasks need joint work, others allow fields to work separately so teams can collaborate more efficiently in a solution-driven manner.
Likewise, having a digital product with divided development edges eases scalability processes, such as scaling from “just” a website to adding a mobile app version.
With a back-end-developed Application Programming Interface (API), there are only a few front-end-focused steps to take to develop and launch a working product.
Lastly, another advantage of having separated Web Development edges is that the front- gets modified way more frequently than the back-end.
Whether it be due to aesthetics or UX UI reasons, improving just one end of the Web Development process takes less time than it would take to remake both ends.
As a result, teams can apply a wide variety of visual changes relying on the continuous operation of the server side to ensure seamless User Experiences.
Conclusion
There are major differences between front end back end development— yet both edges can work together to develop excellent digital products.
Whether you’re looking to start your Web Development process or upgrade your existing digital product, get in touch with us to deliver disruptive solutions your users love!
