Web development is a set of successful web-solution development processes that meet the needs of both the business that owns the application and the users. For the ready-made web solution to be to the liking of both parties, it is necessary to have a high level of writing and testing code skills, working with design, as well as competent project management.
So what exactly is web development and what are the main responsibilities of a developer? What is the importance of the three-servers principle and what are the other key factors of successful web development? Let’s take a closer look at these key aspects of successful web development in a new article.
Web Development Unveiled
Web application development is the process of creating, designing, testing, and deploying an application to be delivered to the end user over the Internet, where users can access it through web browsers.
Creating web applications is complex work that involves a whole team of experts: front-end and back-end developers, designers, testers, project managers, and others. Project managers collect basic customer requirements and plan the main work. Accordingly, designers are engaged in the design of the web project itself, and testers check some code and functionality of a finished or semi-finished web solution.
Front-end developers write a responsive, modern interface, and back-end developers build and provide data processing mechanisms and website functionality. You can read more about what technologies are used for web development in one of our previous blog posts.
Decoding the Role of a Web Developer
After the developer receives the basic work plan and documentation from the project manager, they begin their work on the next solution. Depending on the qualification, a developer can write front-end or back-end programs. During their main job, a web developer fulfills such responsibilities as:
- Write and test their code directly. A developer comes to the workplace and checks the availability of tasks, for example, in Jira, where these tasks are recorded. Depending on their competence, they learn the chosen task (for example, setting up the Stripe payment system). If the task lacks written details and requires additional clarification, they could ask a person in charge (for example, PM). After that, they start directly writing code, testing, and refactoring it.
- Task formation and client communication. They ask clients what exactly is required, and what functionality or part of it needs to be connected to the future web solution. Also, the developer can ask to provide additional design samples to clarify a task.
- Cooperation with the tester and correction of detected bugs and other errors of the web project. After the testers have tested this code, they look at their report, evaluate it, and make the necessary changes to fix web solution non-working parts. If, after retesting, the web project works properly and the client approves, the web solution is uploaded live, in open access.
- Cooperation with the designer to establish a well-thought-out design and put it into operation. A web developer consults with a designer to match the visual elements of the design with the immediate functionality. For example, whether a button or tab on the site is appropriate, whether these elements should be changed, kept, or removed, etc.
Practical Techniques for Streamlining Web Development
For successful web application development, our developers always try to adhere to the standards of work on three servers: local, staging, and production.
Local Server
On the local server, a developer writes the code and conducts its first tests, the mechanisms of which are built into the framework itself. A programmer writes everything on their device: PC, laptop, or other machine that they have. They have their development environment, to which only they have access. They write the code by hand and go through all possible processes that they want to do with this code (editing, commenting, etc.).
If a client doesn’t have a configured stage and live server yet, a developer simply shows their local server screenshots, of where the future application is deployed, if it’s needed.
Staging Server
A staging server is a training server that shows how the system would work in its final mode. Usually, the stage server can be hosted by the client. However, it can be hosted by the company providing the service, if, for example, the client is not up to it, or they intend to do it later. However, the presence of a staging server covers the need to show the code or arrange a collaboration with third-party developers. The staging server exists outside the developer’s machine. On staging, the code is accessible to the project lead, developer, QA, and all interested parties except end users.
Developers create a staging server, for example, through Amazon. And to optimize work with the server, they use tools such as Laravel Forge or Docker. People who have credentials can go to the staging server and see what processes are happening with the code. They can view the web project as it is, launch it, and use it in the capacity of the functionality in which it exists. Usually, at this level at least, from the side of the development company, QA testers also have independent access to the code and do their main work.
If more than one development team has access to the staging, it is usually thought through GitHub to share and monitor who is doing what and when which pieces of code are being updated. Developers create their working branches according to the schedule or by agreement. When the developer wrote the code, he announced that he uploaded a certain code to a certain branch on the stage server. Our team member or a third-party company can track or check exactly what has been changed in a certain period from a code position.
Production (Live) Server
After all the main work has been completed, the fully developed and tested web project is uploaded to production, where the end-user has direct access.
During further work with the application, all changes are first made to the staging server so that the team can see how the new code works on it, so as not to annoy users and that nothing breaks on the server. After that, when they make sure everything works fine, there are no conflicts with the old code, the testing is successful, everything is repaired, and they can apply the same changes to the live server.
