When starting to learn how to develop a web application, it is so hard to decide where to start. This is because there are so many programming languages and frameworks which we can choose, and the new ones keep coming up. Even experienced developers can be overwhelmed, and it is so hard especially for new learners. We all get lost easily if we do not have a map and cannot reach our destination (sometimes I do not even know where I want to go...). We definitely need a map when we learn a new thing and I hope this map shows a big picture to be a web developer.
Front-end
Front-end is the presentation of a web application. HTML and CSS are used to created static web pages. JavaScript is used to change HTML and/or CSS dynamically to change the look of a web page. For example, when a user enters an invalid email address, JavaScript changes HTML and CSS to display an error message.
Although HTML5 and CSS3 are so powerful and we can achieve lots more than just static pages, unless you are a web designer, you just need to know a few basics such as how to change a text color or how to add margin around an image. There are lots of CSS libraries out there for free such as Bootstrap, and it works better than creating CSS files from scratch.
JavaScript has a lot of frameworks, and popular frameworks these days are React.js, Vue.js, and Angular.js.
Back-end
Back-end provides data so that front-end page can display them in a web page. Data are stored in a database, and API is a program which accesses a database and return necessary data to web pages.
For example, a shopping website such as Amazon has a database which stores items being sold, and when a user search an iPhone case to shop, API looks for iPhone cases from database and return to a front-end web application. Then JavaScript in front-end displays iPhone cases in a search result page.
Popular languages to create API are Node.js, Python, and C#. Node.js is actually a JavaScript but developed for back-end. Python is very popular language for AI/Machine Learning because Python has powerful libraries for AI/Machine Learning such as NumPy and SciPy. C# is also popular since it can be deployed to Linux, macOS, and Windows after .Net Core.
Where to start
There are lots of choices to make, and sadly we cannot learn everything. Since new libraries and frameworks keep coming up, we will never be able to catch up. If I have to choose one language, it would be JavaScript. The reason is that we need JavaScript for sure to create front-end pages and JavaScript (Node.js) is also a great option to create a back-end API. Since we can use the same language, same editor, and same development environment, it reduces a lot of complexity and learning time.
Next article will explain how to set up a development environment.
