An introduction to web development technologies
Many articles on web development technologies are geared towards developers. They often stray too far into technical talk to be digestible or useful to people in other areas of the business, especially business owners and marketers.
But it’s valuable for people in these roles to understand some of the technical aspects of web design and development services if only so they can have informed discussions with their development teams or vendors. It can give them a conceptual understanding of how a project will be built technically-speaking. That’s what this article is all about.
Web development technologies refer to the multitude of programming languages and tools that are used to produce dynamic and fully-featured websites and applications.
Throughout this article, we’ll talk about front-end and back-end technologies.
Let’s first define each of these terms.
Front-end (client-side) technologies.
Front-end technologies are for the “client side” of your website or application. They’re used to develop the interactive components of your website, and produce the elements that users see and interact with. This includes text colours and styles, images, buttons, and navigation menus.
Back-end (server-side) technologies.
Back-end technologies are for the “server side” of your website or application. They’re for developing the technical foundation. They store and arrange data and make sure everything on the front-end works. For example, when a user provides login credentials to a social media application, back-end technologies are used to check if those credentials are accurate. Once the credentials are verified, the server will send back the profile name, picture, and other associated information.
Back-end technologies are also used to streamline core business processes. In cases where you have lots of data that needs to be processed, you could run a script in the back-end to generate a meaningful report on the front-end. You can also send automatic emails to groups of users. Emails can be triggered by certain dates, such as the expiration of a user’s free website trial.
The first two technologies we’ll discuss are front-end technologies.
1. HTML
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It’s one of the fundamental technologies required for web development. It provides the base structure for a web page. HTML code ensures that all the content on a website is properly formatted. This is so your Internet browser can display the content as intended. Without HTML, a browser couldn’t display text or load images and other elements.
HTML5, the most current version of HTML, specifies a large number of Application Programming Interfaces (API integration services) that can be used with JavaScript for a more interactive and dynamic website:
Canvas: Canvas is an HTML5 element used to draw images and shapes and manipulate them. It can also be used for more complex cases such as game graphics and animations.
Web Storage: Web Storage is used to store information right in the browser. Some examples of this would be storing user login information and saving user preferences for a website.
Service workers: Service workers enable a script that keeps running in the background when a web page is opened and is mainly used in websites with offline capabilities. It makes pages available offline and allows for the use of web push notifications. It can send these notifications even when your browser isn’t open.
WebSockets: WebSockets allows for persistent two-way connection between the user and the server. The most common use cases include chats and notifications in web apps.
2. CSS
Cascading Style Sheets, abbreviated as CSS, define the style and aesthetics of a web page. While HTML is used to structure a web page, CSS specifies the appearance of that structure. This includes page layouts, colours, fonts and element positioning. If HTML is the bones of the web page, CSS is the skin. It makes the Internet, and your website, look good.