5 Top Visual Studio Code Extensions in 2020 Visual Studio by Microsoft is one of the top integrated development environments (IDEs). It enables developers to integrate their existing development suite with other applications, adding a lot of features in the process to boost your productivity. As a part of Microsoft’s efforts to open source their code, Visual Studio is available as free and open-source software. One reason behind the popularity of Visual Studio is its extensibility with the help of plugins and extensions. These add ons enhance the core functionality of the IDE enable you to make your development process more efficient and convenient. 1. Import Cost In the development process, you may often find yourself adding dependencies to your project. While modular development is a crucial part of software development today, it is a good idea to ensure that you are prudent with your imports. The Import Cost plugin for JavaScript and TypeScript allows you to be wary of any dependenc...
What is front-end development?
Now that we understand the different types of site rendering methods, it's easier to understand that front-end development is the art of creating sites and web applications that render on the client-side.
Technologies used for front-end development
While there are many different types of technologies and stacks, most front-end web developers use HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the de facto building blocks of the web, and client-side frameworks such as Angular, React, Stencil and Vue.
Not everything happens on the frontend, though. Client-side rendered applications still rely on services and APIs that run on back-end remote servers or the cloud.
What is back-end development?
While front-end development is about making sites and web applications render on the client-side, back-end development is all about making these apps render server-side. But it's a bit more involved than that. While the previous statement holds true, back-end developers also create services that process business logic and access other resources such as databases, file servers, cloud services and more. These services are the backbone of any application and can be accessed and used not only by server-side rendering apps but also from client-side rendering apps.
Technologies used for back-end development
When back-end developers create apps that render on the server-side, they use the same building blocks as front-end developers: HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Back-end developers also work with software stacks that include operating systems, web servers, frameworks, languages, programming APIs and more. The frameworks, languages and programming APIs in these stacks are used to render server-side sites and web applications and to create services that other applications can consume.
Notorious stacks include .NET, MEAN and LAMP, but there are many more, and each includes a programming language of choice, such as C#, JavaScript, Java, Go, Python or PHP.
What is full-stack development?
As a developer, you don't have to settle for just frontend or backend; you can do both as a full-stack developer. This is, in my experience, where the fun begins. Full-stack developers can create sites and web applications that render both on the client-side (frontend) and the server-side (backend).
They also create services, components and APIs that encapsulate business logic, solve specific business problems and access infrastructure such as databases, file servers, cloud services and more. They work with the full stack and it's the best of both worlds.
Summary
By now, the difference between the frontend and backend should be more evident, as well as the different activities carried by developers that work on both ends of the wire. In practical terms, the frontend means the browser and the backend, the server or, more recently, the cloud.
If you like user interfaces, are keen on sound design and like the visual aspects of creating apps, then perhaps the frontend is where you want to spend your time as a software developer. The frontend is exciting not only visually, but also from a programming standpoint; you will spend endless hours writing logic that will make your site look and behave the way the designers intended.
If you like to spend your time solving business problems, writing algorithms, working in the cloud, and creating services and APIs, then the backend is for you.
If you enjoy both and feel equally excited and comfortable with all aspects of web application creation, then a career as a full-stack developer is what you want.
Whatever path you choose, there has never been a better time to be a software developer.
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