Front End Development vs Back End Development – The Core Differences

Front End and Back End are two fundamental concepts that play a pivotal role in web development, shaping the digital experiences we encounter every day. When discussing these terms, it’s like navigating the interwoven threads that form the fabric of the internet.

At Zindua School, we believe a career in tech is possible for all who are open to learning and put in the work to master the art of coding. So let’s take the confusion out of some of these technical terms. We’ll give you the scoop on front end vs back end. 

What is Front End Development?

The Front End of an application (Web or Mobile) is what the user gets to see and interact with, you might also think of it as the client side of the application, that’s it. Buttons, images, animations, layouts are just examples of what front end comprises of. Therefore Front End Development is utilizing various programming tools and techniques to build up a visually appealing application that is also functional. Responsiveness and performance are two main objectives for the front end, the work of a front end developer hence will be to utilize the correct tools to achieve the objectives.

As a front end developer, you might want to consider perfecting your skills in some of the mentioned areas and languages below:

HTML – The front end developer mainly structures the front end of a website using HTML, it uses a markup language to achieve this hence it’s name (Hyper Text Markup Language).

CSS – (Cascading Style Sheets)After having the website’s structure, as a front end developer you are required to at least master the art of beautifying and positioning of content in an application using CSS.

JavaScript – JavaScript will serve as your core programming language that will help in adding user interactivity and making your applications functional. Although there are a lot other programming languages, javascript was mainly built for the web, becoming a good front end developer will need you to master javascript to run cool software both for mobile and web applications.

JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks – After learning the core concepts, you are required to upskill and learn at least one or two libraries built with javascript, these libraries will help you build scalable and efficient web and mobile applications faster with no hustle. Examples of popular libraries are ReactJS and VueJS.

If you’re looking forward to start your journey in front end development, Zindua School has you covered, start by going through our HTML and CSS free foundational course to kickstart your career as a front end developer.

What is Back End Development?

The back end of an application (mobile or web) comprises of the server of the application, the part of the website that you cannot see or interact with. The back end mainly deals with interacting with the storage unit (database) and feeding the information that is necessary to the front end. As a back end developer you will be developing gateways such as APIs that will help in feeding data to the front end of the application. You are also able to working with system components without user interfaces or even systems of scientific programming, are also included in the backend. 

A back end developer will need some of these useful tools and languages to manage the assigned tasks:

Back End Language – You are expected to learn either of these programming languages (NodeJS, PHP, Python, Java e.tc) to help you build your back end applications.

Back End Frameworks – After getting comfortable with a language, you might consider learning one framework that is related to the language mastered. Example, if you picked NodeJS you can start learning ExpressJS which is it’s popular framework, if you mastered python, you can start learning Django which is python’s framework for the web.

Databases – You might also want to get familiar with a popular database that stores the information to be fed in you front end. You can check out this free SQL foundational course to get started.

Conclusion and What next?

After getting a hang of either of the two, you might consider upskilling by combining both front end development and back end development and become a full stack developer. A full stack developer has the capability of building both the front end and back end of an application using the desired languages and tools mentioned above. Read more about some of the career pathways you can pursue in Software Development to help you upskill and unlock new potential.

Enrolling at Zindua School for the software development program will provide a learning opportunity for your to become a full stack developer with the React and Django tech stack to be specific. Enroll now at Zindua School