How would you describe your favourite developer?

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Is there a developer around you whom you adore, but whose work is a bit nebulous? Not to worry! Here’s a quick recap of what your favourite developer does.

Let’s start with the basics. Developers design technological solutions such as software, applications or websites. They create the code that defines the solution’s behaviour using programming languages. They also use one or more frameworks, which are basic models that eliminate the need to start programming from scratch, thereby saving a great deal of time.

But an accurate description doesn’t stop there. Developers fall into three main categories: front-end, back-end and full-stack.

Front-end developers

The front end is the visible aspects of the solution, i.e., all the parts or interfaces the end user sees and interacts with. This type of programming is “client-side” rendering and these interfaces act as intermediaries between the user and the background processes, or the back end (more on that later).

Our friends, the front-end developers, program the visual, aesthetic aspect of the interfaces and come up with ways of interacting with the solution, such as navigation menus, buttons, scrollbars, filters or forms. To design everything, their preferred tools are languages, such as JavaScript, HTML5, SCSS, etc., and frameworks, like Angular (with Typescript) and React.

One of the concerns of front-end developers is user experience. Interfaces need to be aesthetically pleasing, but also responsive and accessible, i.e., easy to use for as many people as possible.

Hints for determining whether your favourite developer is a front-end programmer: Do they use the abbreviations UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) when talking about their work? Do they show a strong interest in graphic design?

“Go wash your hands if you want any candy!”

Charlotte, aged 4, turns on the bathroom light. She steps onto the heated ceramic tile, climbs onto her stool and easily turns the faucet handles. Before long, the water reaches the right temperature, she washes her hands, and the soapy water disappears down the drain. Mission accomplished!

Our little sweet tooth interacted with the bathroom front end, which had been specially designed to make her task easy and pleasant. She didn’t see the pipes running behind the walls to the water heater. She doesn’t know how the wastewater will be channelled to the sewer. She doesn’t think about the electrical network that ensures her comfort. Although invisible to her eyes, this “back-end” is essential to the success of the hand-washing operation.

On the other hand, if your father-in-law visits the bathroom, he’ll probably assess all these elements in detail. He’s a full-stack man.

Back-end developers

The back-end developer is concerned with how a solution works. Thanks to the code they write, the solution connects operating systems, servers and databases. This part of the programming, referred to as “server-side,” is inaccessible to users and takes place in the background.

While front-end developers generally have a good sense of aesthetics, the work of back-end developers has more to do with logic. Their role is to define the structure to establish the relationships between the solution’s components and ensure that it responds appropriately to user requests.

The result of the back-end developer’s work has to be high-performance, robust and secure, but that’s not all. Ideally, the code should be easy for other developers to read, understand, maintain and modify, in which case it is called clean code.

Back-end specialists use programming languages such as .NET, C#, Java, Python and PHP. On the framework side, there’s Entity Framework, Django, Flask and Ruby on Rail.

Is your favourite developer a back-end specialist? If the idea of an Excel file being considered a database gives them cold sweats, they probably are.

And what about full-stack developers?

Developers who work on both the back end and the front end are known as full-stack developers. But where does thes name come from? A stack is a “pile” of independent components that work together to support the operation of an application. Since these generalists can program a solution from start to finish, they’re called full-stack developers.

The best developers are…

In fact, all three categories of developers are important, because to be truly innovative, we need to be able to draw on the talents of each. If they’re lucky, your favourite developer works in a team of individuals with varied expertise and complementary skills. Every project should be an opportunity for them to thrive and make a difference. At least that’s what we believe at Classe Affaires!