All modern websites today are built with a combination of programming code, text, images, media, databases, and a web server that executes the processes in programming language which is then passed to a web browser as some form of HTML markup language which is then interpreted by your browser and displayed as a website on your computer screen.

The term web development generally refers to any kind of web related development, engineering, or design. But more specifically it is used to describe a the more technically challenging practice of writing or editing code in a programming language that is used in the creation of dynamic database driven websites. It also connotes any other technical work performed in the implementation of web server technology and related software applications

Any database driven,dynamic, or browser responsive websites are made possible by programming languages such as Javascript, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, and many others. The popular WordPress web design platform, for example, was originally engineered and is still driven by software written in the PHP programming language and uses the MySQL database schema. Web Development programming languages such as these make up the very fabric of all modern websites today. Thus web development is a required skill or service for anyone looking to either customize a technical website or to build a new custom website from scratch. With the importance of web based business increasing year over year, it is no surprise that web development is becoming a more and more in-demand service today.

If you’re looking to build a custom website or edit an existing one you’ll need to hire a web developer to help you plan out the work needed and to execute the project for you. Web Development services are as varied as the platforms that can be built with web programming languages. But there are several categories of web development services that could be named. In reference to where the program files are executed, if a web developer creates a program in Javascript, they are developing software that will be ran and processed by a web browser, which can be considered “front-end development”. Whereas if a developer creates software in PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, or PERL, the code will be executed and processes will take place on the web hosting server, and this type of programming could be called server-side programming.

Another way of describing web development services could be defined by the type of application that being created, or the architecture and organization system which dictates how the various program files relate and communicate with each other to construct the processes that take place or the display views that users will eventually see.

When looking to hire a web development company or independent web developer to work on your custom website application, it’s important to take care to hire a professional and capable developer who has the right combination of skills and experience to work on your project. For example when hiring someone to work on a pre-existing website application, the Web Developer you hire must know how to code using the specific programming language that your website was built in. This means if you have a website application that is built with PHP code then you will need a web developer who has experience coding in this specific language.

If you plan to create a new website application from scratch that requires custom programming then you should also be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the different programming languages that different developers use, or ask several different web developers not just whether they’re capable of building the platform you envision, but also what possible disadvantages there could be from building your web application using their programming language of choice versus one of the other popular programming languages in use today.