A web developer is a software developer or software engineer who is specifically engaged in the development of World Wide Web applications, or distrubuted network applications that are run over the http protocol using an http server, a web server, and an http client, a web browser. Web developers can be webmasters who handle website administration and web design as well as web application development or can simply be web application developers. Web developers are formally in charge of web development within their respective organizations or also as freelance software developers.
Tools of the trade
As software developers for the Web, web developers use:
- interpreted scripting languages like Perl, Python (programming language), PHP, Ruby (programming language), VBScript, JScript, etc. as well as some compiled languages like Java (programming language),C (programming language),C++,C#,VB.Net that are either pre-compiled or just-in-time compiled to create dynamic and interactive server-side web applications.
- the client-side interpreted scripting language JavaScript, also called ECMAScript, HTML markup, Cascading Style Sheets, and the web browser DOM, or the document object model, to build client-side web applications.
- relational database management systems, or RDBMSs, like MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle database, PostgreSQL, etc. as well as the self-describing markup language XML, extensible markup language, to handle data collection from web users as well as storing either public or private data that is shared over networks via the Web.
Setting a standard
Web developers are the gatekeepers of the Web. They adhere to the open standards and guidelines created by the World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, when creating any programming for the web. Often, web developers help contribute to these open standards and guidelines through their work on open source projects working to help enhance and debug web-based technologies.