#JavaScript Archives

Must Know Skills: Backend Developer

Posted on 11/05/202114/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

The backend is the part of a web application that is unrevealed to the user. Unlike front-end, back-end development operations are not very easy and usually turn out to be complicated and manifold; this part is in alignment with the server. Backend operations are a lot different that are controlled by different programming languages like C, C++, Perl, and Ruby. It is a broad field that’s further subcategorized into several levels.

A backend developer usually doesn’t work alone; backend developers usually work in teams of 2 or more people. A team of backend developers contains different specialists that are responsible for their specific discipline. Some are responsible for database management, some work with caching schemes and scripting while some focus on website architecture. Behind every successful website and application, the combined effort of the whole team plays its role. A backend developer’s code bridges the communication between database and browser.

To describe the working of a backend developer in a nutshell, we can say that such a developer mainly focuses on the following:

Web Development Languages
Database and Cache
Server
API (REST & SOAP)

The essential requirement for becoming a backend developer is to have a keen knowledge of at least one server-side programming language.

What is the role of a backend developer?

To understand the skills required to become a backend developer, one needs to analyze what are their responsibilities. Only then we can relate their skills to their roles and responsibilities. The key responsibilities of backend developers are:

They work with front-end developers and provide server-side algorithms of user-facing web application elements. Backend developers code in server-side language to create logic so that web applications function correctly.
Other than coding and creating functional web applications, backend developers also optimize them for increasing response time and efficiency.
They analyze the goals and requirements, handle bugs and errors, and come up with solutions.
They also interact with the database for storing data and ensure that every user has access to what they search.
They also manage APIs that are executed across the devices.
They are also involved in building the architecture of the system.

Backend Developer Skills

To have efficient backend developer skills, one needs to have complete command on the subject. A good developer is aware of every new trend and invention in his domain. He urges to learn and align with all advancements coming his way.

Technology progresses every day. Many innovations are being made, and adapting to modern techniques is imperative to sustaining the game. Luckily in the development domain, a new trend might be complicated in learning, but it is focused on reducing the coding effort. Every new language aims to have minimal syntax, and it is suitable for a developer to invest some time to learn it.

The necessary technical skills required to become a backend developer are:

In-depth knowledge of at least one backend programming language and framework.
Knowledge of front-end technologies, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so that he can communicate with the front-end team.
He should be capable of managing a hosting environment along with the database administration.
He should be capable of scaling applications to handle the load changes.
He should have enough knowledge of accessibility and security compliance.
It’s good for him to have an experience of version control, such as GIT.
A backend developer is not expected to have command on every programming language. That is not possible for a human to have expertise in each of them. But they are expected to be experts in their opted language.

More Backend Developer Skills to add on the resume

1. Web Development Languages: Back-end developers work simultaneously with front-end developers, setting server rationale to outside components of the web application. So as to execute this rationale, the backend engineer utilizes server-side scripting language. The best programming languages that you must know while talking about backend developer skills are:

Ruby: Ruby is a programming language that is utilized accompanied by Rails. Ruby is to Rails as PHP is to Zend, or as Python is to Django. The sheer class and finesse of the language are what attract the back-end developers towards this language and make it a must-have in your tech stack. It prioritizes conventions rather than configuration, which helps the back-end developers as they don’t have to waste their precious development time in configuring the files to start the development process.
Python: Curated by Guido van Rossum and rolled-out in 1991, Python is an interpreted, cutting-edge, general-purpose programming language. It reduces the need of coding to a very significant level and has high utility because of the presence of third-party modules. The ease of use and extensive libraries offer back-end developers more productivity as compared to other programming languages. Not just for building basic applications like desktop apps, Oss, Business Apps, and web frameworks, but Python is also the best fit for AI and ML-based web development.
PHP: PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open-source back-end scripting language used by developers to build web apps and sites. PHP also has a huge assortment of utilitarian modules and a couple of the modules accessible in PHP incorporate Graphics and PDF, among others. One of the greatest advantages of PHP is that it is very easy to learn and use because of its simple syntax. Anyone who is familiar with C language can easily grasp PHP without any difficulty.
Java: Java is an object-oriented, platform-independent, general-purpose programming language that is designed to have negligible implementation reliance. As a result of Java’s power, convenience, cross-stage capacities, and security highlights, it has become the most preferred language among developers.

2. Comprehensive Knowledge of Databases: Become familiar at stacking and recovering data from databases. Though front end developers can associate with databases and interface with them too, server-side development is right now the standard method to control advantaged and extraordinary access to that information, including storage and recovery. Start with great social style databases, and move towards chart databases as your knowledge permits.

3. Connecting to Application Programme Interface (API): Internet browsers aren’t the only entity to interact with web applications. Regularly, an organization will offer a mobile app for iOS or Android alongside its principal site. There are additionally program based applications that principally utilize JavaScript, not server-side rendered HTML (through structures like React, Vue, or Angular). To recover information for the display, these applications require an Application Programmer Interface, or API to associate with.

HTML might be helpful for designing substance in internet browsers, however, there are greatly improved configurations for information that will be utilized by different projects. The two most mainstream positions for API information are JSON, which represents JavaScript Object Notation, and XML, which represents eXtensible Markup Language.

4. Server Handling: Your site needs a database to deal with all the client and product data. A database stores site content in a structure that makes it simple to recover, arrange, alter, and store information. It runs on a remote PC called a server. There is a wide range of databases that are generally utilized, for example, MySQL, Oracle, Postgres SQL, and SQL Server. For server management you can choose any one of these and acquire an expertise on it: Docker, Kubernetes, Nginx, Node.js, New Relic etc.

5. Knowledge of Popular Frameworks: You must have knowledge of the frameworks identified with your preferred language. For example, on the off chance that you go with Java, you would be required to know Spring, Hibernate, and so on. These are well known Java-based frameworks. Additionally, on the off chance that you go for Python, you would be required to know Flask, Django or some other Python-based framework.

Estimated income of a Backend Developer

According to research, and taking the previous year’s figures into consideration, backend developer trends to earn up to $120,798 per year. This figure could vary based on expertise, experience, skills, and is also dependent on the company, country, and other factors. Also, it is worthwhile to note that there’s a vast difference between the pay-scales of backend developers and front-end developers. Front-end developers aren’t paid as much as backend developers. The reason is that front-end work is mostly done with the help of automated tools, while backend development requires much technical expertise.

What is the future of Backend Development?

As of the current market trends, there are no worthy alternatives to backend developers and backend development. So naturally, the future is very bright for such developers. In this digital age, every business is required to have an online presence, and for that, they require high-quality backend development for their websites. Although many clients are not aware of the difference between backend and front-end still, the market cannot survive without backend developers. Despite technology replacing everything with automation, backend developers have a safe future as they are required for the process of developing automated tools.

Summary

The role of backend developers is critical to web development. They are responsible for all the key roles and ensure the deployment of quality products. That is why more and more aspiring web developers are today opting for this career. Such people should have a passion for coding and possess all the required knowledge and skills to become an efficient developer. It is also necessary to have other additional skills, mentioned above, to make your mark in the market.

ECMAScript & its Features

Posted on 07/03/202115/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

ECMAScript is a term commonly used by developers for coding standard but most of us don’t know how did it come into the picture and why do we need it?

Imagine a world without a set of rules for coding. Everyone would be writing their own codes, will have their own set of rules and when a new person enters the world of software development, he/she will never know which set of rules they need to follow. The situation will become chaotic!!

The same incident happened with Javascript. When Javascript was first created by Netscape then there was a war going on between all the browser vendors in the market. Microsoft implemented its own version of javascript in Internet Explorer and Mozilla implemented its own. Similarly, other browser vendors implemented their own versions.

All this created a huge problem for the developers. One version ran fine on Netscape but was a total waste on Internet Explorer or Firefox.

To solve the cross-browser compatibility, Javascript was standardized by the ECMA international and that’s the reason it got the name ECMAScript. All browsers eventually implemented ECMAScript (though it took a lot of time).

How is Javascript related to ECMAScript

JavaScript is actually the term most of the developers use for ECMAScript. Although there are other implementations available for ECMAScript like – JScript (Microsoft) and ActionScript (Adobe), but JavaScript has proven to be the best-known implementation of ECMAScript since it was first published.

Jeff Atwood (founder of Stack Overflow) coined the term “Atwood’s Law,” which states:

“Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript. “

It’s more than ten years now, and Atwood’s statement still lingers on. JavaScript is continuing to gain more and more adoption. The “next generation” of Javascript is something known as ES6 (The 6th edition, officially known as ECMAScript 2015).

6th Edition – ECMAScript 2015

The 6th edition, officially known as ECMAScript 2015 is different because it introduces new syntax. Infact, a lot of new syntaxes.

Browser support for ES6 is still incomplete. However, we can still use ES6 features by using a pre-processor like Babel to cross-compile our JavaScript back to ES5 compatible code for older browsers, so there’s no reason to put off learning about it.

This update added arrow functions, promises, let and const, classes and modules and a lot of new features, but defines them semantically in the same terms as ECMAScript 5 strict mode. The complete list of new features can be found on http://es6-features.org

Some of the new features that are introduced in ES6 –

Default Parameters

We do not need to worry about parameters taking 0 or undefined value since we can define defaults in the parameters’ list now. This also saves the overhead of sending parameters to each function call when we wish to use the defaults.

Block-Scoped Let and Const

‘let’ is a new ’var’ which restricts the scope of the variable to a block instead of the whole function. With ‘const’, things are easier. It’s just an immutable entity, and at the same time block-scoped like let.

Template Literals

It determines the way to output or append variables in a string. Now we have a simple bash-like syntax that makes the code look prettier.

Multi-line Strings

When writing a multiple line string, ES6 save a lot of typing efforts by its new syntax that uses ‘backticks’.

Destructuring Assignment

It provides intuitive and flexible destructuring of Arrays and Objects into individual variables during assignment so we do not need to write extra code for the assignment task.

Arrow Functions

Arrows are shorthand for functions using the => syntax. They are syntactically similar to C#, Java 8 and CoffeeScript arrows. Arrows would make your ‘this’ behave properly, i.e., ‘this’ will have the same value as in the context of the parent function – it won’t mutate.

Promises

Promises provide the representation of a value that may be made asynchronously available in the future. We can also combine one or more promises into new promises without worrying about the order of the underlying asynchronous operations.

Classes

ES6 provides more intuitive, OOP-styled and boilerplate-free classes. These classes encourage the prototype-based object-oriented pattern which brings support for inheritance, constructors, static methods and more.

Modules

ES6 includes a built-in module system which provides support for exporting values from modules and importing values to modules within the javascript code and without polluting the global namespace.

Spread Operator

The spread operator is an interesting way to build new arrays based on the values of existing arrays. It can:

Copy an array
Concatenate arrays
Insert new items into arrays

7th Edition – ECMAScript 2016

The 7th edition, officially known as ECMAScript 2016, was finalized in June 2016. New features include the exponentiation operator (**) and Array.prototype.includes.

Array.prototype.includes

The includes() method determines whether an array includes a certain element or not, returning true or false as accordingly.

Exponentiation Operator

The exponentiation operator works same as exponentiation in mathematics, it returns the result of raising first operand to the power second operand. For example – 5^10 or 7^12

Conclusion

There are a number of really great language-centric reasons to start writing your code in ES6 and ES7 now, but there isn’t enough room in a single blog post to enumerate them or go into the nuances of how they will make your life better.

Animation: JavaScript vs CSS3

Posted on 02/02/202121/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Use of internet is increasing day by day. According to a Survey in 2014, 40% of the population of the world is using internet. According to Cisco, in next five years the Global internet traffic is expected to increase thrice and hence it is important to give user a better user experience on the web to be in the competition. Animation is one of the method we can achieve that.

Now the question arises why animation?

Animation or interactivity helps to attract user’s attention, it helps to narrate the product story and yes it is also fun looking at those transitional effects.

“By offloading interpretation of changes to the perceptual system animation allows the user to continue thinking about the task domain, with no need to shift contexts to the interface domain. By eliminating sudden visual changes, animation lessens the chances the user is surprised.”
Scott e.Hudson and john T.Stasko(1993).

But animation is quite difficult on web in respect to other media, the reason is we have to make it compatible in different browser (The devils IE8 and its predecessors too) and different devices (mobiles, tablets, desktops). Some of the feature like canvas is not yet supported in IE8, iOS doesn’t allow flash, and we can’t use lots of images and because it will reduce the site speed.

JS and CSS3 are usually two methods of adding animations on the web. Let’s see how we can use them because people are usually confused over their usage in web.

Animate with CSS3

IN 2007, Webkit introduced animation in CSS, that changed the whole scenario of the web animation.

Below is some CSS that will move an element 150px and 120px in both the X & Y axes in 500ms.

Animate with JavaScript

Writing Javascript is quite difficult. Below is the JavaScript that you would need to write to recreate the CSS transition we discussed earlier.

As you start adding more cases it will become more complex.

If you are using jQuery in your project already, you will likely benefit from sticking with it and using the animate() functions.

Both CSS3 and Javascript have their pros and cons. We can code some basic animation either through Javascript or CSS3 but it is important to know which one should be used when:

If we have some simple effects like color changes on hover, changing dimensions of an element, simple fading effects, or combination of these types of simple effects, we can use CSS3.
But if we want more controls over animation like images slider, or calling animation on some custom events, effects on mouse movement, parallax effect etc. we should use Javascript.
Instead of using core javascript we should use javascript framework like jQuery that can ease our task. These days we have lots of javascript libraries available to ease our animation process. Some of them are-

Tween JS
Jsanim
Animo.js
Move.js
Collie
Minified.js
Rekapi
Snap.svg
Favico
Textillate.js
Firmin
AliceJS
SVG.js
Motio
Anima.js
Velocity.js
Parallax.js

Browser specific hacks for Frontend developers

Posted on 14/01/202114/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

If you are a web developer then it’s unlikely that you haven’t faced this situation-You spent days and weeks writing perfect code. Everything is perfect from the CSS stylesheet to the meta tags. You test it in Google Chrome and it works perfectly fine. You go home and sleep in peace. But when you come back to the office the next day, everything is broken and you find a hundred bugs allocated in your name.

Culprit? Internet Explorer.

And, Mozilla Firefox.

And, Opera.

Happens to all of us, right?

So, is there a way out of this mess? Well, there isn’t. At least not a full proof one. 100% cross-browser compatibility is a myth. It’s almost impossible to write a code which works perfectly fine in all the internet browsers. It comes with experience and you need a lot of patience to learn that craft.

But you can always start small. I learned some browser specific hacks during my journey and I thought it’s a good idea to share them with fellow developers.

Implementation

It is as simple as you write your simple CSS code, just pick the hack you want. Copy it into your stylesheet. Add the style you want between the braces. Enjoy the new styles for the browser that you’ve targeted!

Google Chrome and Safari Browsers

Google Chrome and Safari browsers are mainly the same as they both use WebKit, but sometimes they behave differently in the case of forms, fonts etc.

Css hacks

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0){

.selector{

property:Value;

}

Media Query Hacks

@media all and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) and (min-resolution: 1280px){

.selector {}

}

Javascript hacks

var isChrome = !!window.chrome && !!window.chrome.webstore; // for Google chrome

var isWebkit = ‘WebkitAppearance’ in document.documentElement.style; // for Chrome and Safari

Firefox (any version)

Css hacks

@-moz-document url-prefix() {

.selector { Property: Value; }

}

Media Query Hacks

@media all and (min–moz-device-pixel-ratio:0) and (min-resolution: 1280px) {

.selector { Property: Value; }

}

Javascript hacks

var isFF = ‘MozAppearance’ in document.documentElement.style;

Opera – Opera 10 and above

Css hacks

@media not all and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {

.selector { Property: Value; }

}

Media Query Hacks

@media all and(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0)and(min-resolution: 1280px){

.selector {

Property: Value;

}

Javascript hacks

var isOpera = window.opera && window.opera.version() == X; //replace x y the version

Internet Explorer

Css hacks

:root .selector {

Property: Value\9; color: red\9;

}

Conditional Comments

<!–[if IE 9]> Internet Explorer 9 <![endif]–>

<!–[if lte IE 9]> Internet Explorer 9 or less <![endif]–>

<!–[if gte IE 9]> Internet Explorer 9 or greater <![endif]—>

For example:

<!–[if IE 9]>

<![endif]–>

IE 10 and above

_:-ms-lang(x), .selector { property:value; }

@media screen and (-ms-high-contrast: none), (-ms-high-contrast: active) {

.ie10up {property: value;}

}

@media all and (-ms-high-contrast: none), (-ms-high-contrast: active) {

.ie10up {property: value;}

}

IE 11 and above

_:-ms-fullscreen, :root .ie11up { property:value; }//Works for IE 11 and above

*::-ms-backdrop, :root .selector { property:value; }//Works for IE 11

IE 11+, Microsoft Edge Browser

/* Put this code in external stylesheet: ie11up.css */

@charset “<Any Modern Browser but MSIE 10- or FF 18- >”; _:-ms-lang(x), .selector { property:value; }

Javascript hacks

var isIE = ‘behavior’ in document.documentElement.style && ‘- ms-user-select’ in document.documentElement.style;

var isIE = window.navigator.msPointerEnabled;

var isIE = document.body.style.msTouchAction !== undefined;

JS Developer: Learn Python

Posted on 21/12/202014/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Python and JS are the two most popular programming languages. I was working as a MEAN/MERN Stack Software Engineer where I used Javascript as a coding language. Recently I switched to Python for a second project.

In this blog, I will share my experience of working on both languages at the same time. Let’s get started.

Below are the code snippets which describe the major syntax differences. Can you observe how different they are?

The syntax b/w Javascript and Python are very different as shown in the above sample blocks. Sometimes I make mistakes by using one’s syntax in another. To avoid this these IDE’s are really helpful– IntelliJ (Python) and Vscode (Javascript).

Below are the major differences that I came across:-

Python code uses tabs for a code block whereas JS uses { }
Python uses ‘#’ for comment while JS use ‘//’
Python uses the ‘print’ keyword whereas JS uses ‘console’ keyword to debug anything in the console panel.
Python Function uses a ‘def’ keyword to define function whereas JS uses ‘function’ keyword
The constructor of the Python class is defined by ‘__init__’ whereas JS uses a normal constructor.
The semicolon is not mandatory in both languages to define the end of a statement. But we use it in JS because if we don’t apply it, JS engine will apply it automatically and create unnecessary bugs in the code.

Approaches to implement task in different languages

Every language has its own beauty. While solving any task with NodeJS I need to think in a different way than implementing them in Python. In some scenarios, Python wins and in some NodeJS.

Just a small example-

To create a Task manager backend in NodeJS, I need to use Express. To replicate the same functionality in Python, I need to use Flask.

Checkout repo for basic task manager https://github.com/agarwalparas/task-manager

However, later on, if my backend needs a functionality of Machine learning to manage tasks and prioritize them on the basis of users’ behaviour, then I will surely use Python.

Whereas if my backend needs high speed to list tasks or to search from tasks or for faster real time updates of tasks within the team, then I will surely use NodeJS.

So, it is really tough to decide which language to use in which project. But it is fairly straightforward to say which language can be used for a particular task.

After some experience, I have figured out a way to decide which language is better for a project.

NodeJS for Chat Applications and Realtime Apps whereas Python for Analytics, Machine Learning, Command Line Utilities.

Some important concepts

F String in Python and Template literals in Javascript

The F string and template literals are great new ways to format strings. Not only are they more readable, more concise, and less prone to error than other ways of formatting, they are also faster!

Decorators in Python and Callback Function in Javascript

Decorators and Callback Function are very powerful and useful tools since they allow programmers to modify the behavior of function or class. In Decorators, functions are taken as the argument into another function and then called inside the wrapper function whereas in Javascript the function passed as argument is called callback function.

Async/Await in NodeJS

Before async/await, JS used promises but its code was a little complex to debug and caused callback problems.

Then JS introduced a neat syntax to work with promises in a more comfortable fashion. It’s called “async/await” and is relatively easy to understand and use.

Conclusion

So all in all it’s a very exciting journey. Both languages have some pros and cons. But isn’t it the same with everything. Different languages exist because there is no one-size fits all approach to programming. In fact, their existence gives us tools to help create more robust products. My experience of working with Python and JS simultaneously has helped me gain more exposure to the world of programming languages and I now look forward to learning more about other unknown languages.

What is the role of a backend developer?

Backend Developer Skills

More Backend Developer Skills to add on the resume

Estimated income of a Backend Developer

What is the future of Backend Development?

Summary

How is Javascript related to ECMAScript

6th Edition – ECMAScript 2015

Default Parameters

Block-Scoped Let and Const

Template Literals

Multi-line Strings

Destructuring Assignment

Arrow Functions

Promises

Classes

Modules

Spread Operator

The spread operator is an interesting way to build new arrays based on the values of existing arrays. It can:

7th Edition – ECMAScript 2016

Array.prototype.includes

Exponentiation Operator

Conclusion

Now the question arises why animation?

Animate with CSS3

Animate with JavaScript

Implementation

Google Chrome and Safari Browsers

Firefox (any version)

Opera – Opera 10 and above

Internet Explorer

IE 10 and above

IE 11 and above

IE 11+, Microsoft Edge Browser

<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/content/images/2021/01/image-156.png" alt="Python VS JavaScript – What are the Key Differences Between The Two Popular Programming Languages?" width="557" height="323" />

Approaches to implement task in different languages

Some important concepts

F String in Python and Template literals in Javascript

Decorators in Python and Callback Function in Javascript

Async/Await in NodeJS

Conclusion

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