What Is Web Development?

By Author: Gerard Martin
Total Articles: 14
Comment this article

There has been a lot of confusion regarding the terms web design and web development. Although they may sound entirely the same to most people, the term web design is just one aspect of web development. This is because web development is generally associated to all-encompassing tasks that include web design, scripting, coding, e-commerce programming, and other facets relating to the creation of Internet or Intranet websites. Nevertheless, some web professionals relate web development only with coding and developing website applications with specific functionality and not with the design aspect. This sets it apart from web design whose only concern is the appearance of the site while web development deals with coding and the creation of particular applications that further enhances the website's functionality.

Perhaps one of the best examples of web development is the ecommerce feature of a business website. A website's ecommerce page usually contain products or services that are being offered for sale, their respective prices, availability, and finally, a shopping cart where you could place the things you want to buy ...
... before proceeding to the checkout counter. Kind of reminds you of a grocery store, right? It would, because ecommerce is patterned after a shopping routine that many people are accustomed to. The difference is that you are doing it online and store assistants are not physically present.

Although there is nothing spectacular about the general appearance of an ecommerce page, the programming involved may reach hundreds of lines of code, not counting the components that are linked to the codes. Database programming is another important aspect of website development and plays a really important role in an ecommerce page. The database is the repository of the products that are for sale and their corresponding prices. It also holds the information regarding the total quantity sold and remaining to date. Most importantly, it keeps track of all the transactions and the income gained from the website's operation.

This is why Toronto web development companies consider database programming as the heart of the ecommerce page. This is perhaps the reason why most of their web developers constantly study new advances in database programming and ecommerce development so that the core of an online business is well protected.

Credit card information that are stored in the database are the usual primary targets of unscrupulous hackers, which is why many programmers of Toronto web development companies are focusing their efforts on how to make a website's database impregnable.

Aside from ecommerce development, Toronto web development companies also develop small applications that extend a website's function. Some of these include uploading of cookies on the internet user's browser and video playback control.