Web Development Basic Terms

Web Designer

A web designer is a graphic artist who develops and styles objects for the Internet. Website designers are able to tap into their creative energy and design the overall layout and look for websites.

Web Developer

A web developer is one that develops applications and functionality for the Internet. Web developers usually just focus on a few languages. Typically one developer will focus on the front end programming of a site using HTML, CSS and JavaScript while another developer will focus on server side programming like PHP, Java, Ruby, and .NET.

Hosts

A web host, or web hosting service provider, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed in the Internet. Websites are hosted, or stored, on special computers called servers. When Internet users want to view your website, all they need to do is type your website address or domain into their browser. Their computer will then connect to your server and your webpages will be delivered to them through the browser.

internet connection

Allows you to send and receive data on the web. It's basically like the street between your house and the shop.

Full Stack Developer

Can do both front and back end development

Front End Developer

Client side programming of a site using HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Client's rights

Clients are a web user's internet-connected devices. For example, your computer connected to your Wi-Fi, or your phone connected to your mobile network, and the web-accessing software available on those devices which is usually a web browser like Firefox or Chrome.

User Experience Designer

Designs the way that users interact with the website. Is it easy for users to understand the page, navigate to different areas, and complete common tasks, or can these areas of the user experience be more clear?

DNS

Domain Name Servers are like an address book for websites. When you type a web address in your browser, the browser looks at the DNS to find the website's real address (its numerical IP address) before it can retrieve the website.

Domain Name

Each computer on the Internet is assigned a unique address, called an IP address. A typical IP address looks like this: 199.123.456.7

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application protocol that defines the set of rules that clients and servers use to speak to each other.

Back End Developer

Server side programming like PHP, Java, Ruby, and .NET

Servers

Servers are computers that store webpages, sites, or apps. When a client device wants to access a webpage, a copy of the webpage is downloaded from the server onto the client machine to be displayed in the user's web browser.

Assets

This is a collective name for all the other stuff that makes up a website, such as images, music, video, Word documents, and PDFs.

Prototype

To sketch out a preliminary website design

TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol are communication protocols (sets of rules) that define how data should travel across the web.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is another name for a web address. URLs are made of letters, numbers and other symbols in a standard form. People use them on computers, to make the computer fetch and show some specific resource (usually a web page) from another computer (web server) on the Internet.

Graphic Designer

Visually communicates a design brief using shapes, colors, and fonts, on print design, websites and social media, as well as in photography, animation, billboards, and walls or the faces of buildings.

Code files

Websites are built primarily from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, though you'll meet other technologies a bit later.

IP address

a number that represents a unique location on the web. These are special servers that match up a web address you type into your browser (like "mozilla.org") to the website's real (IP) address. Websites can be reached directly via their IP addresses.

protocol

a system of rules that define how data is exchanged within or between computers. Communications between devices require that the devices agree on the format of the data that is being exchanged. The set of rules that defines a format is called a protocol.

Packets

when data is sent across the web, it is sent as thousands of small chunks, so that many different web users can download the same website at the same time.