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Home / Development / Understanding Web Development

Web development simply means developing a web site for the Internet. As the internet has become a vital part of people’s daily lives, this has become one of the most in-demand skills. Web development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, social network services and electronic businesses. Companies today are looking for web developers to build and maintain websites to meet the needs of their online customers.

The best way to learn web development is by building something that interests you.  Remember, if it’s interesting to you, it will be faster and easier to learn. To build a website that will showcase your creativity and personality should be a priority.

Building a website with many useful features requires a lot of code.  As you develop coding skills, you will understand what is possible and that will inspire you to create your own project.

The web development process can be divided into three main components. These are server-side coding, client-side coding and database technology. When you are viewing or using a website, you are known as a ‘user.’ So web applications or computer programs executed by a user’s web browser are referred to as client-side scripts. That means the program requests any files it needs to run from the web server, and then runs within the user’s web browser. This allows a webpage to have unique and alternating content depending on a user’s input. Ajax, Flash, JavaScript, jQuery, Microsoft Silverlight, HTML5, and CSS3 are some examples of popular languages, plugins and libraries used in client-side scripting. In contrast, server-side scripts are executed on the web server whenever a user requests a document or service. The server then provides the document, usually in the form of HTML, which can be read by the client’s browser. The document sent to the browser may often contain client-side scripts. ASP.NET, PHP, Java, ColdFusion, Perl, Python, and Ruby are examples of languages used for server-side coding. For any website to function on the Internet, it must be hosted within a database on a web server. The database contains all the files required for a website and all its applications to function. Websites usually use some form of a relational database management system (RDBMS); the leading RDBMS options are Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Apache, and IBM. Open-source RDBMS are also very popular, led by MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB.

HTML and CSS are the foundational common code languages of the internet. Every web page is written in HTML. It tells the web browser how to organize and structure the web page. Cascading Style sheets or CSS controls the visual layout of websites. While HTML describes the structure of information, CSS describes how that information should be visually presented. Furthermore, the use of HTML to create a social networking profile and CSS to design buttons and a resume is basic in every modern website. These are useful skills to acquire as they are needed by nearly every single business in the world to communicate to customers.

To manipulate data on your website, you need to learn a programming language. HTML and CSS are not programming languages so they are insufficient for the task. PHP is a good server-side script language to start with because it has a low learning curve and it is easy to set up. These resources will help you learn the fundamentals so you can add more functionality to your website. This probably is one of the best and easiest way in developing a website.

Web development is not an easy task. You can learn a lot from other web developers. They can teach, motivate and inspire.  Also, building websites is more enjoyable when you share your ideas with like-minded people.Thus companies search for experts who can bring the most positive and productive solutions in web development to maximize customer benefits.