A Beginner’s Guide to Web Development

While the information is disseminating from books and libraries to online resources, the knowledge of the digital world comes in handy. As every piece of information is now a query away, it’s necessary to have your works on the internet too, in order to make it stand out and visible to a much larger audience. This is the point where knowledge of websites gets important, and so does a detailed insight on them.

Before getting started on how to create a website, it is important to know how they function and work in the densely populated worldwide web, fetching best results for your query, accessing, structuring and ordering them, and displaying them on your screen, within a fraction of second.
This process mentioned above, from querying to website display is often referred to as website rendering and happens by a successful interaction of three things, the front end script, backend server support, and the web browser.

The FrontEnd Script:

The front-end script includes the code for the look and feel of your website, the part with which the client interacts, often called the client-side of the website. It encompasses the user interface design and necessary tools for them, making use of Html 5, CSS 3, Javascript, jQuery, and more such tools. All of the animations, transitions, color themes, backgrounds, and more are handled by this part of the website.

The BackEnd Server:

The server is the physical or cloud repository that holds the website, by storing all of its resources and content to be rendered on the user’s query. Every time the website is displayed or loaded, it is served from its server and every click pertaining to any page or content render from the server is handled by the back end of the website. The most common languages used for this purpose are node.js, react.js, PHP and python, etc.

The Browser:

A browser is the main component allowing the user to access the internet and its resources. Although there’s a slight difference between a search engine and a web browser, in website rendering both acts, in the same way, matching the input query with the available website content and displaying the best matching results, having the most occurrences of the query string and a couple more criteria fulfilled. Another important aspect of browsers is their compatibility with the website code to allow all the features to execute fully, like the website responsiveness to view-port, transitions, animations, embedded video playability, etc.

Thus, in order to have a website that shows up on the internet when searched, a successful interaction among the browser, the front end code, and the backend server is necessary.

Renowned Web Development Tools and Frameworks

HTML 5

In order to create any website of any sort, a base Html file is a must. This file, mostly named index.html or base.html is the script for the main web page of the website. For any sort of website you’re aspiring to make, the knowledge of Html is the foremost need, but the best part is its low learning curve and self-explanatory features. A single tutorial or even playing around with it, oneself can get you enough knowledge to design your webpage, all by yourself.

HTML stands for Hyper-Text Markup Language, the main tool used to script all of the website content and structures, the divisions and sections to create a layout. Moreover, all of the content and the images, media files like audio and videos are also scripted in the main Html file. Html5 is an improved version of HTML, initially released in October 2014, with more and better features to cater to the evolving needs of a website. Some basic differences include the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) support, canvas, plugin-free video and audio playability, and much more.

CSS 3

Other than designing the landing page or setting the layout for the website’s main page, it’s necessary to beautify it to create a statement impression on the user with the theme and the colors set to effectively conform to the website’s purpose. Although HTML does provide features to play around with, CSS or Cascading Style Sheet is the best way to handle all the website styling and beautification. Presenting the user with diverse features of colors, fonts, sizes, options, and more, a CSS file can surely raise your website’s outlook to the top without much effort.

Just like HTML, CSS also has a very low learning curve and all its features and options are self-explanatory. But its remarkable usability property does not hamper the extent of boldness or impression it imparts to the website. CSS3 is the updated version of CSS, introducing modularity to it, making its features even more handy and useful.

There are many ways to include CSS into your website’s HTML page, one can be in the style tag “<style>” in the head tag at the top of your HTML page, other can be referencing a CSS file to your HTML file and third can be by defining it for every tag in the HTML file. Either way has its own pros and cons but works the same when it comes to document styling.

JavaScript

After designing and styling the content, the real work comes in, the response to user actions. These responses are partly handled by the front-end through javascript coded functions and methods, while the rest is supported by the server-side implementation. Simple actions like interactions with the UI, basic functionality with the transitions and such front-side features are handled by javascript, whereas the new page or content rendering based on user’s selected preferences is done by the server-side fetching records from the database. So to make your website interactive and dynamic in all parts of the user interface, javascript plays an important role.

Javascript can be added to the HTML file in the same way as the CSS. It goes in the script tag “<script>” in the HTML file or a .js can be linked to the HTML page. Another approach can be defining the functions right where the associated HTML object is created. For example, to define response to some button clicks, either the method can be written right there where the button is created in HTML file or the button can be accessed using appropriate CSS Selectors and suitable response to its action can be coded there.

jQuery

jQuery is a lightweight, “write less, do more”, JavaScript library which eases the tasks to be performed by the javascript. It effectively reduces the coding task at hand by its amazing features which do most of the tasks all by themselves. It’s amazing how jquery reduces the same task done by javascript in 10 lines to only 2 lines, with the same efficiency and performance quality. So to get more done with less input, jQuery is a perfect choice, ruling out javascript from the options!

Bootstrap

If you’re feeling already quite overwhelmed by all these languages and tools, well fret no more for bootstrap is a total savior. Bootstrap is the world’s most popular front-end open-source toolkit, featuring Sass variables and mixins, a responsive grid system, extensive prebuilt components, and powerful JavaScript plugins. Providing perfectly scripted template files, bootstrap is your easy alternative of HTML, CSS, javascript, and jquery combined. Just edit and customize the template to fit your theme and requirements and you are good to go. Bootstrap source Sass and JavaScript files can be installed via npm, Composer, or Meteor. Moreover, if you only need to include Bootstrap’s compiled CSS or JS, you can use BootstrapCDN. Who knew web development could be this easy and fun?

PHP

Hypertext PreProcessor, recursively abbreviated as PHP is one of the most basic and simple to use server-side scripting languages. Being time-efficient, flexible, and robust, PHP powers everything from a simple blog to the complex sitemap websites. It deals with all of the functionalities associated with the website that require data fetching and rendering from the server. It efficiently handles all the queries, interacting with the database and the client-side code at the same time. It is a widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft’s ASP. After undergoing many changes and improvements, PHP 7 is the latest and most stable release.

To incorporate server-side support to your newly built website, PHP code can be added to the HTML file enclosed within the PHP tag “<?php … ?>”.

NodeJS

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside a web browser. It is absolutely free and runs on various platforms such as Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc, using JavaScript on the server. One of the remarkable properties of Node.js is the asynchronous programming which helps conserve time making the server capable of handling a number of requests without having to sit idle and wait for a response. This way Node.js runs single-threaded, non-blocking, asynchronous programming, which is very memory efficient.
A node.js file has a .js extension and contains tasks as methods to be executed when a certain event occurs or specific conditions are met. A few of the initial tasks can be accessing a port on a server, displaying initial messages, finding routes, etc. To include server-side support using node.js, separate node.js files can be created and executed before running the HTML file to ensure that server sets up before it's called.

MySQL

MySQL is a freely available relational database management system (RDBMS) based on Structured Query Language. It is an open-source RDBMS, although an enterprise version is also available. The application is used for a wide range of purposes, including data warehousing, e-commerce, and logging applications. However, the most common use for MySQL however, is for the purpose of a web database.

MongoDB

MongoDB is a cross-platform document-oriented database program. Unlike MySql, it is based on JSON objects and hence called the NoSQL database system. Developed by MongoDB Inc, it is licensed under the Server Side Public License (SSPL). As there are a number of backend frameworks available to be implemented, so there is a variety of database systems. Each having its own set of pros and cons, one gets to select from a variety of choices and select what’s most needed for the website. Storing each tuple as a JSON object, javascript compatibility with MongoDB is extremely efficient in querying and data fetching, with minimal time consumption, Moreover, the ad-hoc querying, data replication, and load balancing are few of its prominent advantages. So if you’re planning to have a javaScript based back-end, using node.js, react or even express, MongoDB is a perfect choice!

WordPress

With such a listing of tools and technologies to master, web development does not seem to be a piece of cake as normally perceived, but worry no more for this domain has its knight in shining armor too. To create simple, custom websites with front-end and backend implementations, WordPress is at your service. Transforming the whole web development experience from coding and programming to simple templating and customizing, having one’s own website now is a walk in the park. Just select your WordPress theme and customize it the way you want to. You can have access to the admin panel via your own setup password and you’ll be good to go. Moreover, the pricing is not even hard on the pocket. So if you’re a newbie, let WordPress deal with all the development and you can have a perfectly developed website by adding only a few final touches.

The article here explains all that a beginner web developer needs to know before getting hands on the tools and technologies. This may seem pretty extensive and overwhelming at first, but tinkering with all these technologies is rather fun and interesting than exhausting and overburdening. Moreover, with the ever-evolving requirements of websites, these technologies and their application may vary, but the underlying concepts seem to be a part of all updated frameworks.