A Beginner’s Intro to Back-End Programming

If you are new to programming, you’ve probably heard a few jargons here and there like “recursion” or “dynamic programming” and so on. One of them is probably back-end (no, not yours), aka “server-side programming”.

So, what’s Back-End Programming?

To put it simply, whenever you visit a website, your browser makes a HTTP request to a web server to retrieve information. The server will then send a HTTP response back to the browser and the website will be displayed.

Think of your browser as a blank canvas, that has to ask someone (i.e. server) to instruct what things (info) to draw (display) on it. This is why if the browser fails to connect to the server or if the server fails to retrieve the information it needs for the browser to display, you might see an error like this:

So… Back-end programming is when you write code for the servers, aka the “instructions” to send to the browser on what to display. And, the browser will decide on the style and look on how to display the information in visually appealing, readable ways. Hence, coding for the browser, you guessed it, is front-end programming.