1. What is frontend development?

What is Frontend Development?

• Frontend development is the process of building the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of a web application.
• Front end focuses on, and really only works with, the parts of the application that users interact directly
• This includes:
  • Layout and structure of the page (usually done with HTML)
  • Styling and visual design (usually done with CSS)
  • Interactivity and dynamic behavior (usually done with Javascript)

What Do You Do as a Frontend Developer?

• Design responsive and accessible interfaces
• Write code that handles user interactions
  • Like clicking buttons, submitting forms, animating things on the page, etc.
• Fetching and displaying data from a server
• Managing client-side routing (i.e. navigating between pages without refreshing), if applicable

Modern Frontend Development

• In modern web apps, frontend code often uses JavaScript frameworks like:
  • React (our focus)
  • Vue.js
  • Angular
• These frameworks help manage complex UI logic and state
• They make it easier for developers to design interactive websites with tools like components, virtual DOM, and reusable logic

Frontend + Backend

• The frontend does not manage or store persistent data on its own
• It communicates with a backend server to:
  • Fetch data to display (e.g. products, user info)
  • Submit data (e.g. forms, logins, file uploads)
• This communication is usually done via HTTP requests to an API