Web Development

Introduction

Web Development involves building, creating, and maintaining websites and web applications that run online on a browser. It can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, electronic businesses, and social network services. It's a vast field that is typically broken down into two main parts: the front-end (what the user sees and interacts with) and the back-end (the server-side logic and database).

Core Concepts

1. Front-End Development (Client-Side) This focuses on the user interface and user experience – everything the user sees and interacts with in their browser.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The standard markup language for creating the structure and content of web pages.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): The language used to describe the presentation and styling of a document written in HTML. It controls colors, fonts, layout, and more.
JavaScript: A high-level programming language that enables interactive web pages. It's used for things like form validation, animations, and fetching data from servers without reloading the page.
Front-End Frameworks/Libraries: Tools that make building complex user interfaces easier.
- React: A JavaScript library for building user interfaces, developed by Facebook.
- Angular: A platform and framework for building single-page client applications, developed by Google.
- Vue.js: A progressive framework for building user interfaces.

2. Back-End Development (Server-Side) This focuses on the server, database, and application logic. It's the engine that powers the front-end.

Server-Side Languages: Languages that run on the server to process logic, interact with the database, and send data to the client.
- Node.js (with JavaScript): Allows JavaScript to be run on the server.
- Python (with frameworks like Django or Flask): Popular for its simplicity and powerful libraries.
- Java (with frameworks like Spring): Widely used in enterprise-level applications.
- PHP: A long-standing language specifically for web development, powering systems like WordPress.
Databases: Where the application's data is stored (e.g., user information, products, posts). Can be SQL (like PostgreSQL, MySQL) or NoSQL (like MongoDB).
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces): A set of rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. The back-end often exposes an API for the front-end to consume.
- REST (REpresentational State Transfer): A popular architectural style for designing networked applications, often using JSON as the data format.

3. Full-Stack Development A full-stack developer is comfortable working on both the front-end and back-end parts of an application.

4. DevOps and Deployment

DevOps: A set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten the development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality.
Deployment: The process of making a web application available for use by deploying it to a hosting service (e.g., Vercel, Netlify, AWS, Google Cloud).

Examples & Use Cases

Simple HTML Structure

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>My First Web Page</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
  <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
  <script src="script.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Simple CSS Styling

/* style.css */
body {
  font-family: sans-serif;
  background-color: #f0f0f0;
}

h1 {
  color: #333;
}

Simple JavaScript Interaction

// script.js
// This example is conceptual, often you'd have a button.
document.addEventListener('click', () => {
  alert('You clicked the page!');
});

Practice Questions

1. MCQ: Which technology is responsible for the structure and content of a webpage? A) CSS B) JavaScript C) HTML D) PHP

2. Short Answer: What is the difference between front-end and back-end development?

3. Task: Create a simple HTML file with a heading and a button. Using CSS, make the button's background color blue. Using JavaScript, make the heading's text change to "Goodbye!" when the button is clicked.

Quick Summary

Web Development is divided into Front-End (client-side) and Back-End (server-side).
Front-End uses HTML (structure), CSS (style), and JavaScript (interactivity). Frameworks like React simplify UI development.
Back-End involves a server-side language (like Node.js or Python), a database, and an API to handle business logic and data.
Full-Stack developers work on both front-end and back-end.
Deployment is the process of putting your website online for others to see.

Web Development

Introduction

Core Concepts

Core Concepts

Examples & Use Cases

Examples & Use Cases

Practice Questions

Practice Questions

Quick Summary

Quick Summary

Further Reading

Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) Web Docs

The Odin Project

CSS-Tricks