The difference between programming and web development

The programming world can be difficult for outsiders to grasp. For example, if you have no programming experience, you may not know which language is best for a beginner.

However, misconceptions about programming still exist a lot. Although terms like "software engineers", "web developers" and "programmers" are very popular, there are some key differences about their work that you may not know. Let's see how different programming and web development are!

Different goals

The difference between programming and web development Picture 1

While both developers and web developers use code lines to work on a computer, their goals are very different. The products of programmers are diverse, but they often create completely new computer applications or add to existing software. On the other hand, web developers are only responsible for building and maintaining websites.

To understand the difference, consider the role of a web designer. The designer creates a website model and can plan its features. However, this person does not need to write any code to do that. They can use programs like Adobe Dreamweaver to create website designs or build models in Photoshop.

Web developers narrow the gap between web designers and programmers. While a web designer gives an idea to a website, the web developer will build it according to the specifications. In this project, the role of a programmer may be to create a new tool that handles site visitor requests. In the long run, a developer will finish the job after the application is completed, and the web developer will still be responsible for updating and maintaining the site.

Another important point is the scope of work for developers and web developers. In a business environment, a programmer can be tasked with expanding proprietary software that a company has used for years.

Therefore, they can spend a lot of time figuring out the code for the old applications and trying to add new features to them, since a company will not want to throw away the necessary software for their business. When it comes to website design, if the company wants to build a new website, it is very rare to patch the pieces together. For websites, it would be more effective to start building from scratch.

Use different languages

The difference between programming and web development Picture 2

As you know, there are dozens of different programming languages, all with different strengths and purposes. Someone building a mobile app will use a language other than the language of a person building a web application.

Web developers use HTML (not really a programming language) to organize text and CSS (also not a real programming language) to customize how text displays. They then use JavaScript for client-side work (like checking whether you leave the password field blank when logging in) and PHP for server-side behavior (such as searching for the term the user has import). Of course, there are other languages ​​used in web development, such as Ruby.

On the other hand, a programmer can use any language to build the application they need. Depending on the situation, a programmer can use C #, Java, C ++, Python, C or any other option to build an application.

An important significance of these differences is that web developers must regularly update the language changes they use. The book about web programming written in 2015 may be outdated because of the rapid development of programming languages. Therefore, web programming classes often teach students through online resources instead of books.

In contrast, books written in C language since 1985 can still be quite effective in teaching students about this language, because it hasn't changed much over the past decades. Of course, an old resource may miss some style standards and best practices.

Differences in deployment

You may not think about it, but the languages ​​discussed above actually perform very different functions.

Programming languages ​​such as Java and C ++ are high-level languages, meaning that entering a C ++ code is mostly extracted from the actual commands that it translates into when you compile it. Writing in low-level languages, like assembly language code, will be extremely tedious and difficult. These lower-level code is closely tied to the hardware, so you must specify the movement of data in and out of the specific memory registers.

For example, consider this example assembly code to export ' Hello, World ' from LMU's computer science website:

 global _start 

 .text section 
 _start: 
 ; write (1, message, 13) 
 mov rax, 1; system call 1 là ghi 
 mov rdi, 1; file handle 1 là stdout 
 mov rsi, message; địa chỉ của chuỗi để xuất 
 mov rdx, 13; số của byte 
 syscall; invoke system operation để làm việc ghi 

 ; exit (0) 
 mov eax, 60; call system 60 is exit 
 xor rdi, rdi; exit code 0 
 syscall; invoke operating system to exit 
 message: 
 db "Hello, World", 10; note the newline at the end 

In C ++, to perform the same function, just enter the following simple code:

 std :: cout << "Hello, World"; 

We can see that when the code that the programmers enter is actually compiled, the machine processes it into a form that the computer can read, in order to create an active application. This differs greatly from most web development jobs. Web developers don't need to compile anything. However, there are exceptions for some "web-based applications", things that need to be compiled and run on the web server but displayed on the client. This is where the boundary between application programming and web development is not completely clear.

Web language processing

The difference between programming and web development Picture 3

Previously, the article mentioned that HTML and CSS are not really programming languages. Instead, HTML is a markup language and CSS is a style language. Their syntax describes what is on the page, how it is organized (HTML) and what it looks like (CSS). They are used to create interfaces, and programming languages ​​are used to create functions. You can test it yourself, by creating a text document on your computer called test.html with some basic HTML code, as follows:

Đây demonstrates why HTML không phải là ngôn ngữ chương trình , nhưng không phải là một đánh dấu ngôn ngữ.

Save and open it in the browser of your choice, then you will see that the HTML you specified is valid inside your browser. No code has been compiled; Your browser only knows how to translate HTML. Compare this to a short C ++ program that outputs the message 'Hi!' on the screen - you can't make that code work without a compiler like Visual Studio or an online compiler.

It's fair to say that web developers are a small group of developers, just because similar methods and skills are applied to both positions. Web developers use the skills and tools that developers will not use, such as graphic design utilities and video editing software. In addition, web developers often interact with customers more than programmers. A programmer created Mozilla Firefox, and a web developer built Mozilla.com.

Do you have experience as a developer or web developer? Share any important differences with us in the comment section below and let everyone know what you've learned!

See more:

1. Beginners of computer programming need to focus on what?
2. 26 useful websites should track if you are a web developer
3. Top 20 free programming learning websites need to bookmark immediately!