What is Web Developer

We are very well aware as to how important internet has become in our day to day life. It can be classified as a basic need along with food, clothes and a roof over our heads.

The uses of mobile phones were limited before internet became a part of our lives, now even the phone calls the most basic thing to do on a mobile phone requires internet.

Now that we have established the importance of internet and its daily part in our lives we need to understand how we get the information we need from the internet, this is when a world wide web comes into the picture.

World wide web abbreviated to WWW also commonly identified as web is an information system wherein all the information, documents and other resources available are identified by an URL i.e. Uniform Resource Locator. 

Web Developer : Introduction

Now that we know what a web is let was focus on how does a web come in existence in the first place, how is web created or rather developed? The process of developing a web is the most basic definition of web development.

If more simply put means the process of creating a website on which one can look for information is known as web development. Web development is not something any tom, dick or harry can carry out.

Web development can be carried out a very versed web developer. 

What does a web developer do?

The follow up discussion needs to be what does a web developer mean? Or what does a web developer do? The answer to these questions is a very simple explanation; someone who builds a website can be coined as a web developer. A professional who expertise or solely engages in building a world wide web using a client-server model. To give a better understanding of what a web developer does following are some of the roles or tasks listed down:

1. Smooth user interface: The basic duty of a web developer is to make sure that the experience that the user gets on the website is seamless. The website should be easy to browse or navigate through.

2. Visually appealing: The first thing that speaks volume about the website and parallel to that about the company and its business is how the website looks. Making sure that the website look appealing enough that it leads the user to browse through even if they are not interested to buy any product or avail any services is what a web developer does primarily.

3. Capacity and performance:  Apart from the above 2 points the one thing that is of utmost importance for a website is that it has to function flawlessly. The website should be able to manage the traffic without the need of restoration. It should perform effortlessly for the best user experience.

Types of web developers

After understanding what does web developer mean and what a web developer does it is time to tackle another concern i.e. what the types of a web developer are? Web developers can be widely classified under 3 classes first being front end web developers, followed by back end web developers and lastly full stack web developers. Following are the detailed explanations of the tasks undertaken by each type of web developer:

1) Front End web developer

As discussed about as to what web developers do making sure that the website is visually appealing is one of their primary tasks. The developers who look after the user interface, physical layout and the graphics of the website are known as front end web developers. They use HTML and JavaScript to enhance these areas of the website.

2) Back End web developer

Back end as the name suggests means the developers those put in the work in the background of the web building process. The developers who writes the code and verify its correctness. They also manage the access point for various users who need to amend the website content. 

3) Full Stack web developer

They are the developers who are a hybrid mix of the both mentioned above. A full stack developer is the one who can function as front end as well as back end developers. These developers are well versed with building both front end and back end. So to put in simple words they can develop a whole website on their own.

Role and responsibilities of a web developer

Working as a web developer comes with a lot of responsibilities just like any other job. What does it mean to be a web developer along with the basic web building process? Following are some of the tasks and responsibilities that come with the title of a web developer:

1. Client requirements: It is the most basic and of utmost importance to understand what is client wants to provide the end users. Meeting with the client is the first step to development.

2. Creating and testing the website: This step can be explained to be the first draft of an assignment. Creating the website and doing a test run to make sure the functionality of the same.

3. Coding:  This is the technical part of creating the web. Coding is the foundation of the web created by the web developer. One of the basic web developer skills can be coding. A web developer is nothing if he/she is not well versed with the coding languages.

4. Working with other professionals: The web development process is wider than just coding, the developers need to coordinate with other professionals like graphic designers to ascertain the layout of the website etc.

5. Integration of various aspects: The developers have to make sure to integrate audio, video and graphics onto the site as per the requirement of the client for an enhanced experience.

6. Final test and troubleshoot: The website should run in various browsers and it is the responsibility of the developers to make sure it does. The final test run and the website’s compatibility will all the browsers available are important. Furthermore troubleshooting  and testing the quality for the one last time before the website is up and running.

Best CMS for web developers

Now we understand that everyone does not possess the web developer skills which make it difficult for them to develop a website for their business. To resolve the issue and assist businesses in the web development process we have CMS i.e. Content Management System, it allows the user to develop a visually attractive website to showcase the catalog of their products and services without the need of coding the web.

One is not required to understand a single code to develop the website that would cater the needs of the business.

There are various CMS providers in the market which makes it a difficult for the business to choose the best of the lot. We would like to give a brief of a few with its characteristics, advantages and disadvantages:

1) WordPress

WordPress can easily be termed as the best CMS platform available out there. Almost 43% of the website in the world is motorized by WordPress on the internet. The WordPress community is immense which makes it easier to get support.

It gives you the liberty of building the website in any sort of website. WordPress is SEO efficient. It gives your business room to grow into. The only few cons of WorPress is that the user is responsible for the security of the data as well as the backups.

It can be a little overwhelming for the new users while creating a website, all the functionalities, options and flexibility available. You will need your domain name which will cost around $9 to $15 per year and a hosting account with one of the web hosts will cost approximately $7.99 per month at the least, this may differ for various web hosts out there.

2) Wix

Wix is best known for being beginner friendly e-commerce website builder. Wix has very skillfully captured the market with 110 million individual and small business users. They can be termed as the best e-commerce website builder for small businesses.

A pretty website is your goal? Go for Wix. Ease of use is how we can describe Wix. Wix is most known for its drag and drop interface which makes it comfortable to create web pages. It has a lot of template pre made which can be another one of its pros.

Although changing a template on Wix is pretty difficult, this means one site layout for the longest time which is not a positive image for a website. The storage offered is also limited. The plans ranges from $23 to $49 and 3 plans are provided within this price range

3) Weebly

Back in 2018 Weebly was acquired by square. It is mostly known for its drag and drop website building function which makes the process a lot easier and fun. Over 50 million websites have been built by them.

It is also one of the larger free e-commerce website builders. Adding functionalities with Weebly is easier whether created in-house or third party apps. Similar to Wix, Weebly also provides with the drag and drop facility to create a website which is very beginner friendly.

They also provide with free trials. Making a custom layout is not possible with Weebly. Moreover if the site is down the restoration is only possible after coming in contact with their support team. Pro version costs $12 per month where as the business version costs $25 per month.

Popular tools for web developer

So far we have established that web development requires a web developer skill apart from this there is one more thing required for web development i.e. web development tools. All types of web developers need web developer tools.

Developer tools are the programs that allow the developer to create, test and debug the page of the web. They enable user to debug and check for any errors in the pages created using HTML, CSS and JavaScript etc. It is also used to check the network traffic it causes and enhance the performance. Following are some of the web developer tools:

1) GitHub

The tagline of GitHub is “Where the world builds software”. GitHub helps you and other works on the same project from a remote location that can be anywhere on the face of earth. It provides you with features like repositories, branches, commits and pull requests etc.

GitHub is a code hosting platform. GitHub’s saftery to use depends on the user, it is as safe as you can make it. It was launched on 10th April, 2008 and was written in Ruby ECMAScript Go. It is totally free of cost and due to its community it is the most used collaboration medium among the coders.

2) jQuery

jQuery is a JavaScript library. It helps in simplification of HTML DOC tree traversal and manipulation along with event handling.This is also open source just like GitHub. There are 10 million popular websites 73% of which uses jQuery, this data was surveyed in the month of May 2019.

3) Bootstrap

Bootstrap is HTML, CSS and JS library. It is also open source like the other 2 mentioned above and is one of the most popular front end open source toolkit. It is mainly used for simplification of informative web pages. It is best for putting together a prototype or internal tool.

4) Chrome Dev Tools

Chrome rings us only one bell “Google”. Chrome Dev tools are a set of web development tools directly built in Google chrome. Following are some of the functions provided by Chrome Dev Tools:

• JavaScript Debug
• Sources of panel overview
• Debug background services 
• Pausing the codes with breakpoints etc

Web Developer Skills:

Following are some of the web developer skills a web developer needs to possess:

1) Python

1. Python: Python is a programming language. It is used mainly to build websites, apps and software, automate a particular task and perform data analysis. Python has been very relevant in current times among the coders community.

2) Java

Java is a high level object oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible.

3) HTML/CSS

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and CSS for Cascading Style Sheets. These are very prominent languages in the development industry. These can be termed as the basics of a coder, more like bread and butter. It is very beginner friendly as well. The code are easy to write.

4) PHP

It is a programming language mainly for web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. It helps in development of dynamic and interactive websites and is still as relevant even after the introduction of new languages like Python etc mainly due to its speed.

Career as a web developer:

 All the roles and responsibilities mentioned above need to taken into consideration when one is deciding to enter the career of a web developer. One needs to have a keen interest in crunching the codes.

Developing the same interest helps a lot to get through college. It is just like any other career options wherein you need to be string with the basics which will lead you a long way.

Future as a web developer is very fruitful because as we notice that the whole world is shifting online which would need techies like you to run the system.

One can expect to get paid with less than 1 year of experience $60,000 per annum and if we talk about someone with more than 10 years of experience it can go as high as $107,000 per annum. The median salary in 2020 of a web developer is around $75,000 per annum.

All in all it is not a bad career option is the person is very versed with the basics and interested in creating a beautiful experience for the users.