What is back end development?

Posted on: 28 April, 2009

Back end development, also referred to as server side development, is the process of developing with technologies that run on an external server and then provide an output to the end user. PHP Python Django Ruby on Rails and MySQL are all technologies that fall into this category.

The advantages of providing information in this way are numerable, but ranking among the highest are the security and consistency of delivering information from one secure location.

Generally back end technologies require a front end to provide a service of some kind. A good example of this would be Amazon.com If you go to Amazon and search for a book you see a web page built with front end technology (HTML, CSS and perhaps some Javascript.) But the information about what books they have in stock, your previous orders, delivery information, payment details, they are all stored and recalled using back end technologies.

For more detailed information check this page on Wikipedia.