Web Front Ends: A Component Guide to Web Applications

In the world of web application development, there are many technology trends that people are following, and choosing the technology that works best for your business can win your business in the long run. Technology stack is the term for the combination of languages ​​and tools used for web application development, to understand the terminology of web application development.

You may have heard of client and server, or front-end and back-end, which are the components of any web application built to date. Each of them supports their own specific job, letting the user perform the function or any set of activities that the application is supposed to perform.

Frontend or Client:

The front end of any web application is the part that the user directly interacts with, and all elements that the user uses to interact are rendered on the front end. Also, there can be buttons, text, colors, styles, images, charts, navigation, and everything else that can be used to interact with a website or make up a web application.

This interface is rendered on the user's browser whenever a website or web application is opened. The languages ​​used to implement front-end development are HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Also, the goal of a front-end or client-side is to create an application that responds and executes. A website's responsiveness means that it should appear correctly on all screen sizes, and there should be no unusual behavior of elements.

front-end development language

HTML

It is a combination of hypertext and markup language used to design the front end of any web page. In addition, HTML mainly provides informational structure displayed in the browser window.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS is used to determine the style of web applications in order to make web pages representative and attractive. Therefore, it can control the properties of multiple pages at once, which saves developers a lot of work.

Java Script language

In web application development, JavaScript abbreviated as JS helps a lot. To create interactivity between web pages where the application runs, JavaScript is used. It is also responsible for interacting elements, responding and enhancing the user experience of the web application.

Front-end development frameworks and libraries

　　A front-end framework is a pre-written application structure that acts as the presentation layer of the application. It allows data to be displayed efficiently to the user and provides a way to structure documents, style components, and let developers associate data with the DOM.

React：

React is an open source JavaScript library (extensible as a framework) that provides an efficient and intuitive way to develop web applications. The developer community loves this framework because it is very efficient in developing the front end. Additionally, the framework provides reusable components and a virtual DOM for faster rendering and development.

AngularJS：

For developing single-page web applications, AngularJS is the developer's first choice. It is an open source project that changes static HTML to dynamic HTML. Developers also find it useful when they need a framework that extends HTML attributes with directives, and they need to bind data with HTML.

jQuery:

To simplify the interaction between JavaScript and the DOM, jQuery does its best work. It is a set of themes, UI interactions, effects, widgets, and many other elements that can also be used to simplify browser event handling, Ajax interactions, HTML document manipulation and traversal, DOM animation, and cross-browser JavaScript development.

SASS：

It is a CSS extension language that is useful for enhancing a website's existing CSS. SASS is a practical way to write robust, mature, and reliable CSS that allows developers to add variables, nest rules, selector inheritance, mixins, and more. So, using a command line tool or a web framework plugin, it can be converted into well-formed standard CSS.

Bootstrap and SemanticUI：

These are also popular frameworks as they focus on creating readable and maintainable HTML & CSS with an emphasis on consistent visual design. Among them, Vue, Angular, and React are excellent at building data flow throughout a web application, allowing developers to focus on controlling data instead of focusing on DOM updates.

backend or server side

The backend of any web application is like the engine of a car, it drives the functionality of the entire application and implements the business logic behind the web application. This part of the web application is invisible to the user and is responsible for all functions of the client side running well. Users can access all components and their features in the front end of the application.

Back-end development is one of the most critical parts of web application development, and developers work on creating libraries, writing APIs, and using system components to simplify the application's work.

backend development language

Python:

It is a high-level, interpreted general-purpose programming language that enables faster development and more efficient integration of all systems and components.

PHP:

PHP is a great scripting language for server-side programming, and this scripting language is one of the best web application development techniques. It is suitable for web development where PHP code is executed on the server side.

Java:

Java is an object-oriented programming language and is one of the most popular programming languages. The J2SE version of Java or core Java for web application development provides the construction of complex web applications.

JavaScript:

JS can be said to be an essential language for web application development, it can be used to develop both client and server.

Popular frameworks for backend development

A backend framework is a library provided by a backend programming language to develop the structure of a web application. Additionally, these frameworks provide ready-made libraries that save a lot of time and give a good start to web application development.

Express.JS:

To add core web application functionality to an existing full-featured Node.js platform, use Express. JS is the best framework. Furthermore, it is a popular framework for writing efficient and robust APIs and developing web application solutions.

Flask：

Flask is a Python-based web framework that is lighter than Django and also offers a lesser learning curve. Also, it is a lightweight and simple micro-framework that does not prevent users from using any kind of library or tool.

Ruby On Rails:

Rails is an MVC (Model View Controller) framework that follows the "convention over configuration" principle. It goes beyond assumptions and helps developers do more with less code. Overall, this is an excellent choice for rapid development.

Laravel：

Laravel is also an MVC framework that simplifies the development of modern, robust, and secure web applications. It comes with an intuitive interface, API support, packages, tools and libraries. The framework provides Artisan Console, its own Command Line Interface (CLI) that can perform repetitive and complex tasks.

Django：

Django is an MVT (Model View Template) framework. It is suitable for larger and more complex projects. It is also a Python-based framework that provides more secure web applications. The framework itself has security features such as protection against SQL injection, user authentication, cross-site scripting, clickjacking, and cross-site request forgery.

Summarize

The technology stack is a decisive part of the success of a web application. Therefore, understanding the ecosystem and all the required technologies contributes to the application development and its success. In order to do the groundwork, choosing the right language, framework or tool is the first step.