Frontend Versus backend for dummies

When you decide to become a web developer, you are most likely to choose between front-end and back-end. You might have probably heard of the terms before, but you are not sure exactly what they are. So after you read this maybe you will get a general idea of what front-end and back-end developments are.

Front-end development

Front-end development, a.k.a. client-side development is what you see on the website. These are things like the buttons, fonts, logos, pretty much what’s going on the screen as you interact with a web page.

Let’s say you are checking out the brand new iMac on the Apple website. As you scroll down you see how the monitor tilts and rotates, and all these different colors to the brand new iMac. You get to see and experience all these cool features about the new iMac and hooked up so that you can keep staying on the website.

Back-end development

Back-end development, a.k.a server-side development is what’s going on behind the scene. Let’s go back to the Apple website as we just talked about.

When you try to check out all these cool features about the brand new iMac, all the information gotta be stored somewhere. This information is stored in the server, which is where the back-end development comes in. These are things like running APIs and creating libraries that consist of data, algorithms and trying to make sure everything in the front end works completely fine.

It is like an engine that gets a car moving. To help you understand better, let’s think of a restaurant. The front-end is like the dining room. The menu, the servers, chairs, and the food that you eat, and the wine that you drink. These are things that you see, touch, and experience.

The back-end is like the kitchen, cashier, and even the maintenance people who are not recognized as much as you enjoy the food at the table. But in order for you to enjoy the food at the table, all the things that are not recognized must be doing their job. So the front-end and back-end are equally important.

Full-stack development

And there is full stack development, which takes care of both front-end and back-end. A full-stack developer is a software engineer who takes care of both the front-end and the back-end development.