So in this three-part video series,
we're gonna discuss what a front end developer is,
what a back end developer is
and also the pros and cons of each.
So part one, today's video,
is all about the front end developer;
part two will be the back end developer, a future video;
in the video after that one, we're gonna be talking about
the pros and cons of each role
and a little bit more information about how it would work
and perhaps which one you should be focusing on.
But let's start though,
with the definition of a front end developer.
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Welcome back.
My name is Tim Buchalka
with another programming tip of the day.
As I briefly mentioned, three-part video series.
Today's video is all about front end developer.
So what is a front end developer?
Well that's a developer, a web developer,
with a focus on what the user interacts with on a website.
So they work with the web designer,
but also they work with back end developer as well,
and I'll talk more about it a little bit later.
So the typical skills that a front end developer would need
would be: HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
So that would be sort of the three
prerequisite skills you'd need.
But there's soon to be other things like jQuery
and so on and so forth, that you need to learn as well,
lots of other things which I won't go into detail now.
Now, see the web design adverses a web developer video
that I did previously;
click-up up here;
and that outlines more information on
what general web developer skills should be aware of.
So check that if you need to.
So, getting back at the front end development though,
they implement the web designer's user interface
and basically get that working if you will.
Now, that's basically the look and feel of the website,
but also, they interact with the back end process,
if there is one, for a website.
And, to these days,
all but the most trivial or basic websites
usually have some form of backend or server process.
Now, some sort of data storage or whatever it is.
So, to hopefully clarify this a little bit more,
let's start considering an example of a website.
So here you an see the Learn Programming Academy's website;
now, over to the right-hand side you can see
that there's an image that looks, what's basically a box
that you can click, there's a link that you can click;
it's an image of a book;
and, if you click on that, basically it will take you
to another page.
So, the front end developer that've implemented that website
and then they've also added the functionality there so that,
once the button is clicked, in this case,
the little image button there,
it takes you to another page;
so, the front end developers
basically added the code to do that;
and that new page, if the user clicks a button on that page,
they've added that functionality as well,
and you can see that what pops up is a little box
for the user to enter their email address;
and, once they've done that,
once they've clicked on the button,
basically, the point, the information gets sent through
the back end process on the server;
and that then sends out the ebook.
So, the saving of the email address
and sending of the email with a link to the user's email,
basically inbox if you will, to download the ebook,
that's a back end process and that's created by
the back end developer;
whereas the front end developer, they're focused on
the front end, they're focused on the buttons and so forth,
the clicks so they open up a new page;
and basically, they might have done
is they've actually use the presses
given to them by a back end developer
and they can access that functionality.
In this case, the functionality was for the back end process
to accept that email address and then they take
that email address away and they start processing.
So you can see where the front end developer's role
has finished, is in sending the information.
They don't know the implementation details
of what's happening in the back end:
where they have the email,
it's actually sent out to someone,
how the email was put together and sent out to the user.
Basically, what they're doing, is they've implemented
the functionality in this particular example;
so go back to the first page: you've got the button
on the screen there, I've clicked on that,
it opens up the next page if you will,
and then, after that, there's another button to click
that then pops up the form you can see there,
email address is typed in and then the button is clicked
to download the ebook.
So, after the download button is pressed,
it's the front end developer's,
basically their responsibility,
that's what they've implemented,
that they've send that using a special code,
a special API code if you will,
or a way to access that functionality from the back end,
they've used that to send the information through
to the back end process on the server
and that then, basically kicks off and does the rest.
So you can see how there's two separate roles:
there's the front end developer who's focusing on
the look and feel, on what the user's interacting with
with the website;
and there's the back end process,
which we haven't seen in this example,
with that accepts the email address
and starts processing it.
So, basically, there's a hand off process
from the front end where it hands off the information
that it's processed, in this case, is the email address,
and sent that through to the back end;
and that's the way it basically works.
The front end developer and the back end developer
might be the same developer, depending on
whether you're part of a large team
or whether you're working for yourself.
So I don't think you necessarily can't do both yourself,
it is quite common in small development teams
or even solo developers to have some skills
both as a front end and a back end developer.
But, certainly once you connect it to industry
and start working with large teams,
you'll see that the roles are often separated.
So, they've got front end developers,
who focus just on the front end,
and they've got back end developers,
who only focus on the back end;
and then there's basically whatever they can talk
and interact with each other in some way.
All right, so hopefully that's gonna be
a bit of a understanding of what a front end developer is.
Tomorrow's video, as mentioned, part two.
We're gonna talk about the role of a back end developer;
and then part three, the video that's coming out after that,
I'm gonna go through the pro's and con's of both
the front end and back end developer.
All righty, so I hope that helped.
If you've got any questions feel free to leave a comment
and I'll get back to you.
If you're ready to look at the next tip
click on up here; and you can check that out.
If you're interested in coding specific programing videos
click on the link in the bottom left-hand corner.
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and I'll see you soon!