Web Dev Intro

Overview

This is an intro to a multi-series post. In the initial few postings, we will be getting into web development basics, making our way from frontend to backend and covering a few different technologies along the way. We will review what Frontend vs. Backend is along with the job functions of each. This series will be mainly aiming to aid those trying to get into web development but get lost along the way.

So many acronyms and terminologies clutter tutorials nowadays, making the barrier to entry even harder. New terminologies and technologies are abundant, but the underlying fundamentals are the same, which is why fundamentals should be stressed. It’s these fundamentals that we should master to be able to take full advantage and truly appreciate the more advanced technologies used in web development today.

As a new web developer or someone who wants to educate themselves on web development, if you start off trying to use these advanced technologies, you will have many gaps in your knowledge. Due to this, you will not truly understand the underlying mechanisms that they are built on, therefore starting you off at a disadvantage.

We will not be going to deep initially but will present an overview of how the web works, primarily its architecture. Knowing the architecture of something you are trying to learn it the best starting point as it gives you a holistic view of the landscape. Followed by discovering the underlying technologies that they are built on. Only then can we start to take advantage of these advanced technologies.

The Walkthrough

We will start by reviewing how the browser requests for a website. Following that request, we will travel with it through the networking infrastructure into a company’s backend servers. Once there, we will review how complex this backend world is and how amazing it truly is. Once we have explored that world, we will work our way back to the browser with the requested information. We can then look at how the browser makes sense of the returned data to display not only what you asked for but how it tracks your every click and scroll. At each of these steps, we will review how things used to be done before all of today’s significant innovations, followed by how things have changed and work in today’s world.

So without further ado, let’s begin!