The Goal
Welcome to The Becoming a Programmer Blog, the blog dedicated to helping you become a Full-stack Enterprise Application Software Developer. So, what exactly is a Full-stack Enterprise Application Software Developer? Let us break it down working backwards.
Software Developer
A Software Developer (or programmer) is someone who designs and builds software applications that serve a specific use case. These applications run on mobile devices, desktops, laptops, and servers. They even run inside your microwave ovens and washing machines. Where there is an application running, first there was a programmer at work.
In summary, a Software Developer builds apps. Let us now see what an Enterprise Application is.
Enterprise Application
Enterprise Applications (also called Business Information Systems or Line-of-Business Systems) are the types of software applications that you will find in most businesses around the world. These apps support the day-to-day operations of the business. They are either custom-built for a specific organisation, such as the Netflix streaming app, or generic-built and used by many organisations, such as the MYOB accounting app.
Full-stack Developer
A Full-stack developer is proficient in both frontend and backend technologies.
Front-end Developer
Frontend development is about building the visual parts of the applications. That is the part of the application the user interacts with via their mobile devices or laptops, for example. From the user’s perspective, the front end is the application, and thus a good user experience is important to ensure the ongoing success of an application. That is why companies, in addition to front-end developers, also employ designers to ensure a good user experience.
However, on each button click on the front end, a lot is happening behind the scenes. This is where backend development comes in.
Back-end Developer
Backend development deals with the number crunching and communication with databases and other internal or external services. Without a backend, there is no application.
To see the backend at work, let’s mail a vehicle insurance quotation to a prospect. To generate an insurance quotation, the backend will:
- Take all the necessary policyholder and vehicle information entered via the front end, and create an XML or JSON package.
- This data are then passed via a SOAP or REST service to the insurer’s rating engine (often called a black box).
- Once premiums are calculated, the result is returned to the caller,
- the premiums are extracted, and
- the quotation gets updated accordingly,
- Another service then generates a PDF version of the quotation, and
- Yet another service mails the PDF quotation to the prospect.
As you can see, the majority of the work happens behind the scenes.
Specialisation
People with an eye for design are typically drawn towards front-end development, whereas others may be more drawn towards backend development. However, even if you decide to specialise, it is important to have a good working knowledge of both frontend and backend development.
In Conclusion
So that is my goal with this website — to teach you to become a programmer, proficient in both frontend and backend technologies.
Next, I will discuss the challenges you will face when starting out learning to become a programmer.
