Back End or Front End (user interface) Developer

Since 1999, I have been designing, generating, creating, re-skinning, and maintaining web sites for individuals and for various companies through the greater Denver area.   I got started with web site development by building my own web site with all HTML and a smidgen of javascript.   As I developed new web sites, I learned new techniques, new applications, and new tools, and applied those tools when constructing and enhancing web sites

After learning about PHP and MySQL in early 2004, my efforts became more focused on the back end or back side.   For example, a web page is to have a particular look and feel - color, borders, font sizes, banners, etc. - and display some information.   Dynamic back side processing will build the web page.   In other words, the PHP code will extract any required information from the database, verify the extraction process was successful, perform the processing to properly format the information for the user, etc.   In this simple scenario, may be 20% of the development time is on the look and feel - the front side - of the web page as it appears in a browser, and the remaining 80% is all of the PHP work on the back side (back end) that accesses the database, does the error checking, and renders the page with the style sheets and the HTML and if need be, javascript.

The tools of the web trade that I use are focused on the opensource environment.

My development browsers are the most current versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, which are installed on my laptop   If the client also wants their web pages to display in the Microsoft browsers (versions 7, and 8), then the development work is almost doubled, based on the many quirks of the Internet Explorers.   Now, the style sheets, and possibly other code, will require additional checks to compensate for the browser differences.   I will not develop a web site that must render in IE v6.0.

In the work that I completed in 2010 at Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Company (CBL) now known as Dearborn National Life Insurance, the web page prototypes were designed by their sister company in Chicago, IL.   My responsibility was to build the PHP code that works behind the "scenes" to render the web pages.   The PHP code that I developed was required to make all web pages have the same look and feel. Their web site was initially developed with a MySQL web site. Their data was eventually migrated to a SQL Server database.

In constructing web pages, you must, "put the horse before the cart".   That is, you need to know what the look and feel of the page will be - the horse.   Once that is completed, you construct the back side code - the cart - to create that look and feel.   Next you test to verify the look and feel is the same in all targeted browsers.

My involvement with web page development and web applications over the past several years has been with both front end and back end.   As a web developer, you must have knowledge of both.   As a web designer, you do not necessarily need to know what happens or what is required to render the design in a web browser.   But, as a back end developer, you must know what to do with the required tools to make that design appear as required n the browser.   In all of my temporary contract positions in the past few years, I did a smidgen of web page designing.   All of my web design knowledge and experience comes from the personal web sites I developed, and from reading the British publication NET Magazine (It has nothing to do with Microsoft .NET), a magazine for designers and developers.