Web development is an evergreen field where opportunities are always plenty. Since its emergence in the early 90s, the development industry has evolved and thrived in various ways and domains. Today, in the 21st century, web development remains one of the most sought-after skills. To begin a career in this domain, mastering web development languages is essential. However, with the various programming languages that exist today, you may get confused about choosing which languages to learn, especially if you are a beginner.
This article aims to introduce you to the 15 best programming languages for web development in 2022. We will discuss the use cases, features, pros, and cons of each language so that by the end of the blog, you will have a better understanding of different programming languages.
What is a Programming Language
Any language is, in general, a means of communication. Programming language is a computer language, which is used for communicating with computers. It is a set of instructions (or code) that’s written to perform specific actions. Through the programming language, developers are giving the computer instructions in a way the machines can understand and follow. All programming languages have their own syntax, structure, and rules that must be followed in order to execute the codes without errors.
Types of programming languages based on different aspects of web development
Now that you’ve decided to pursue web development, let’s begin by discussing its various aspects. In web development, there are three possible career options that you can choose: Front-end development, Back-end development, and Fullstack development.
- Front-end Development
Front-end development is the process of developing the facade of the website, the part that a user sees and interacts with. Technologies used in front-end development are HTML (the markup language), CSS (the styling tool) and JavaScript (programming language).
HTML makes the skeleton of your website. CSS is used to style your website. It is concerned with the overall appearance of the website such as its fonts, colour schemes, and other elements. JavaScript is a high-level programming language that gives additional functionality to your website.
In other words, you can create a button using HTML tags and design it with CSS. But it is JavaScript that determines what the button should do, and where it should take the users.
As a front-end developer, you may either receive designs from web designers or be required to create them on your own.
- Back-end Development:
Back-end development involves creating the website’s logistics; basically, things that happen behind the scenes.
For example, if you are running a restaurant the dining area is your front end and the kitchen is your back end. You don’t want everyone to see what’s going on in the kitchen.
Nodejs, Python, PHP, etc. are some of the main programming languages that are used to create the back end of your website. (Detailed description of each is given below)
- Full-stack Development
As full-stack developers, you are required to create both the front end and back end of the website. To be a full-stack developer you need to master programming, database handling, API management, and security management.
Why do Some Programming Languages Work Better than Others
You may have noticed that not every programming language works the same way. Some tend to be faster than others. The reason behind this is associated with the level of abstraction of each language. Essentially, it defines things that the language takes care of automatically and things that need to be done manually. Some of the factors are:
Automatic memory management can cause languages to be slower than the ones that do not enforce it.
If a language has to be compiled, it will take more time as the source code has to be translated into machine code.
The efficiency of the compiler impacts the speed.
Languages that use an interpreter to translate can cause the software to be slow as it executes the program line by line. It also needs start-up time.
15 Best Programming languages for Web Development
Now that we have gone through the basics of programming languages, let’s take a look at the 15 best programming languages for web development.
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Python
- Java
- Typescript
- Objective C
- C++
- SQL
- PHP
- C#
- Angular
- Ruby Rails
- Golang
- Scala
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