web development

Practical web development[edit]

Basic[edit]

In practice, many web developers will have basic interdisciplinary skills / roles, including:

Graphic design / web design
Information architecture and copywriting/copyediting with web usability, accessibility and search engine optimization in mind
Mobile responsiveness

The above list is a simple website development hierarchy and can be extended to include all client side and server side aspects. It is still important to remember that web development is generally split up into client side coding, covering aspects such as the layout and design, and server-side coding, which covers the website's functionality and back-end systems.

Testing[edit]

Testing is the process of evaluating a system or its component(s) with the intent to find whether it satisfies the specified requirements or not. Testing is executing a system in order to identify any gaps, errors, or missing requirements contrary to the actual requirements. The extent of testing varies greatly between organizations, developers, and individual sites or applications.

Security considerations[edit]

Web development takes into account many security considerations, such as data entry error checking through forms, filtering output, and encryption. Malicious practices such as SQL injection can be executed by users with ill intent yet with only primitive knowledge of web development as a whole. Scripts can be used to exploit websites by granting unauthorized access to malicious users that try to collect information such as email addresses, passwords and protected content like credit card numbers.

Some of this is dependent on the server environment on which the scripting language, such as ASP, JSP, PHP, Python, Perl or Ruby is running, and therefore is not necessarily down to the web developer themselves to maintain. However, stringent testing of web applications before public release is encouraged to prevent such exploits from occurring. If some contact form is provided in a website it should include a captcha field in it which prevents computer programs from automatically filling forms and also mail spamming.

Keeping a web server safe from intrusion is often called Server Port Hardening. Many technologies come into play to keep information on the internet safe when it is transmitted from one location to another. For instance TLS certificates (or "SSL certificates") are issued by certificate authorities to help prevent internet fraud. Many developers often employ different forms of encryption when transmitting and storing sensitive information. A basic understanding of information technology security concerns is often part of a web developer's knowledge.

Because new security holes are found in web applications even after testing and launch, security patch updates are frequent for widely used applications. It is often the job of web developers to keep applications up to date as security patches are released and new security concerns are discovered.