Web development is a skill that demands constant learning, to stay at the top in this field. It comes up with a set of rules and techniques that every developer should know to make their websites functional in whatever manner they want.
The skill-sets which a developer must know to start their career in web development are Browser DevTool and Protocols, Frontend technologies, Backend technologies, Frameworks, and Database, APIs, and Data Format.
Before diving deep into the topic, let’s first see what is web development.
What is Web Development?
Web development is a method of creating a website for a public network (Internet) or a private network (Intranet). Web development tasks range from making a static Single Page Application to a Multi-Page Dynamic and Complex Application. It is an art of making computers to communicate with each other as the people do.
Web development is also referred to as non-design aspects of building websites that involve writing content using markups languages and creating codes for making them functional.
The tasks that web developers must go through while developing a website are web designing, web content development, web engineering, client-side and server-side scripting, e-commerce development, web server and network security configuration, and so on.
5 Technologies That Every Web Developer Must Know
To perform the above-mentioned tasks, every web developer must have knowledge of some technologies. Let’s see these technologies:
Browser DevTool and Protocols
Before knowing about the Browser DevTool and Protocols, let’s understand what the browser is. The Web Browser is a type of application software that is used for getting information from anywhere present in the world over the network. These are the interpreters that retrieve the significant contents from the Web Server and display them on to the screen when the user requests a page from a particular website.
The web browser is required to be installed on to the device in order to connect to a website’s server and to display their pages on the screen.
Some of the well-known browsers are:
- Google Chrome: The most commonly used browser, with 64% global market share on all devices.
- Safari: Commonly used browser among Apple device users, with 17% global market share.
- Firefox: The open-source browser supported by Mozilla Foundation.
- Internet Explorer: It is a browser developed by Microsoft.
As of now, we know about the web browser, let’s see one of the most important tools of it i.e., Browser DevTool.
Browser DevTool: It is a collection of web developer tools built inside the browser itself. It enables us to develop a better website faster. It allows us to debug and edit the HTML and CSS code and track the javascript code’s error. You can also inspect network activity and optimize the speed of the Website.
To use the DevTool in an optimized manner, the developer needs to be aware of different tabs available in it. The different tabs available are Element, Console, Source, Network, Performance, Memory, Application, Security, Lighthouse.
Protocols: Protocols are the set of instructions that allow electronic devices to communicate with each other over the network. Some of the protocols used in web development are:
- HTTP: The HyperText Transfer Protocol is used by the web browser to fetch the pages from the website server. For example, whenever you enter the URL “https://google.com” in the browser, the browser requests a website from google’s server, then the response returns back in the form of the page which consists of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code.
- DDP: The Distributed Data Protocol uses WebSockets to create a constant connection between Client and Server. It is a client-server protocol used for querying and updating the database of the server-side along with synchronizing the updated data among the clients.
- REST: The Representational State Transfer protocol is mostly used for API. It is used for creating web services. The standard methods such as GET, POST, and PUT are used by REST to exchange information among applications.
Front End Technologies
The front end is a layer built above the back end, comprising all software and hardware components used for making user interfaces(UI). It is mainly focused on client-side development. The front end technology is a collection of different languages and libraries. But the front end languages that every web browser understands are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Some of the commonly used javascript libraries are jQuery and Underscore.
Programming languages:
- HTML: HyperText Markup Language is used to describe the structure of a web page using elements. It tells the web browser how to display the content on the page.
- CSS: The Cascading Style Sheet is used to control the layout of the Multi-Page Application and describes how the HTML tags will appear on the screen or on any other media.
- JavaScript: The javascript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language for HTML. It is an open and cross-platform programming language designed to create a network-centric application. It is used as both frontend and backend technologies.
Libraries:
- jQuery: It is a library of javascript used for HTML document traversing, animating, event handling, and Ajax interaction for faster web development.
- Underscore: It is also a javascript library that provides functional utilities for a variety of use cases through which we may come across, as a developer.
Back End Technologies
The Back end refers to server-side development, where the focus is mainly on how the website works. It is a combination of programming languages, a server, and a database.
The technologies used in the back end, focus mainly on making websites responsive and faster. Some of the programming languages and databases used are:
Programming languages:
- JavaScript: It is used as both front end and back end programming language. It is used for making web page dynamic. It is used by most of the frameworks such as Angular, Ember.js, Vue.js, Backbone.js, React Native, Three.js, Aurelia, Meteor, etc.
- Python: It is a general-purpose, object-oriented, scripting programming language used where lots of mathematical calculation is required. It is used by most of the frameworks such as Django, Web2Py, Flask, Bottle, CherryPy, and so on.
- Ruby: It is also a scripting language used by Ruby on Rails framework.
- PHP: It is a server-side scripting language used to manage dynamic content, database, etc, on to the website. It is used by many frameworks such as Laravel, Symfony, Zend Framework, etc.
- Java: It is an object-oriented, high-level programming language used by many frameworks such as Spring, Hibernate, Google web toolkit (GWT), JavaServer Faces (JSF), and so on.
Databases:
- Redis: It is an in-memory key-value database with optional durability. It is the most popularly used database. It is used for retrieving data fastly but doesn’t allow much depth in data storage.
- MongoDB: It is a document-oriented database program written in C++, which uses JSON like documents with optional schemas for storing data. It is a NoSQL database. It is the only database that the Meteor framework supports.
- MySQL: It is an open-source relational database management system in which data is stored in the form of tables. It is popularly used in frameworks that support PHP like WordPress websites.
- Oracle: It is a multi-model DBMS, used for data warehousing, running online transaction processing, and mixed database workloads. It is an enterprise SQL database.
- SQL Server: It is an RDBMS used for storing and retrieving data as requested by the application running on the same or the other system across the network.
Server: It is a computer program or device where all the application codes are stored. When the client makes any request, the server gathers the information and sends the response back to the client.
Web Frameworks
The framework is a platform that allows us to develop an application. It makes building and deploying an application easier by taking all the difficult and repetitive tasks in setting up a new web application. Some of the popularly used frameworks are:
- js: It is a framework based on JavaScript used for web applications having a real-time, two-way connection in which the exchange of data is easy for both client and server. It is a server-side framework.
- Ruby on Rails: It is a framework based on Ruby. It is an open-source framework that allows the user to make it better.
- Django: It is a framework based on python used to build a better web app more quickly in very less code.
- WordPress: It is a framework built on PHP used by 35% of websites running currently. It is a CMS(Content Management System) used for creating beautiful websites, blogs, and apps.
- Spring: It is a framework based on Java, provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based applications.
APIs and Data Format
API: It is an Application Programming Interface that allows interaction between multiple software without sharing the codes. It also provides an extension mechanism that allows users to extend the functionality in various ways and up to different degrees. Some of the well-known APIs are created by Facebook, Google, and Twitter, for their web services.
Data Format: It is a structure of how the data is arranged and stored. Some of the data formats are:
- JSON: JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a popular file and data interchange format that uses the human-readable text to store and transmit data in the form of an array having key-value pairs.
- XML: Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a data format that is predominantly used by Microsoft to store data in both human-readable and machine-readable formats.
- CSV: Comma Separated Values (CSV) is a delimited text file used to store data separated by commas.
Overview of Trending Technologies to stay ahead in Web Development
As of now, we have seen the technologies that are mandatory to start a career as a Web Developer. Now, we will see the list of some technologies that one should know to stay ahead in this field.
- Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Machine Learning: Since the experts believe that the combination of Machine Learning with chatbots will be great for the web development world, so it is better to be prepared for the upcoming challenges in this field.
- Chatbots: Chatbots are used to resolve the customer’s query at the moment they visit the site. This also helps to provide services to the customers 24*7.
- Blockchain Technology: It is used to provide faster and secure transactions over the internet. This technology uses standard data storage to allow users to store their data globally at different locations.
- Accelerated Mobile Pages: Nowadays, people are using mobile more than any other electronic gadget, so making mobile-friendly websites using responsive web design has become today’s trend in the field of web development.
- Motion UI: It includes animated charts, hovers, background animations, and beautiful headers. It is used to differentiate the design of one website from the other and also helps in creating an interactive and beautiful interface.
Conclusion
Web development is a method of developing a Single-page or a Multi-Page application for the public or private network. It is also referred to as non-design aspects of building websites that involve writing content using markups languages and creating codes for making them functional.
The 5 technologies that every developer must know before planning their career in the field of web development are:
- Browser DevTool and Protocols
- Front End Technologies which include HTML, CSS, JavaScript along with their libraries such as jQuery, Underscore, etc.
- Back End Technologies which comprises a server, programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, etc along with databases such as MongoDB, NoSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, etc.
- Web Frameworks that are used to make website building activity easier. Some of the most commonly used frameworks are Node.js, Django, Ruby For Rails, Spring, WordPress.
- APIs that are used to allow developers to use some of the functionalities of the applications without sharing the code and some of the data formats that are generally used to store data are JSON, XML, CSV.
The technologies that one should know in 2020 to keep a person up to date in the field of web development are AI and Machine Learning, Chatbots, Motion UI, Accelerated Mobile Pages, and Blockchain technology.
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About Author:-
Rashmi Kumari is a Writer at SocialMirror. She is a part-time blogger and loves to read stuff about Technology. In her free time, Rashmi loves to write on various topics of Technology, and help people in getting their technical problems solved. Traveling and listening to music are her hobbies.