February 28, 2017 at 17:05The terms "frontend", "client side" and "interface" - how to use and not screw up
Before working as an editor and content marketer at Live Typing, I was engaged in humanitarian texts for two years: I edited and wrote articles about fashion, music, cinema, visual arts, sociology and the like. It was required of me not so much to correctly convey the meaning as to achieve a vivid image, create a mood and give the reader emotion. This unties the hands in a relationship with the words: previously having an exact meaning, they become raw materials for allegories, metaphors and other literary devices.
Once in the technical environment, I realized that verbal decorations interfere with the function. Together with the trend of info-style, this made me reconsider my approach to working with texts. Including the time has come to remember that each term has its own meaning.
When working on a project caseI found myself designet that I consider the terms “front-end”, “client side” and “interface” to be synonyms. In order to dot all the i and not confuse them anymore, I wrote this memo. I hope that it will help not only me, but also my colleagues - editors, copywriters, technical journalists, marketers, project managers and everyone who has no direct relation to programming.
All that helps a person control a tool, whether it is a program, a computer, a household appliance or a panel of a factory machine, is an interface. Interface elements are menus, buttons, keyboard, mouse, monitor, switches, toggle switches, toolbars, typing fields, error screens and other ways of interacting and input / output of information. In relation to the interface of programs and applications in English, the phrase user interface (UI) is found.
An interface is all that you see and that you can touch.
The interface can be convenient and inconvenient. The criterion of a convenient interface by today's standards is a short series of actions that does not infuriate, does not bother, does not exhaust, and ultimately gives the desired result. The sum of the sensations of using the interface is called the experience of interaction, user experience or user experience (UX). It can also be bad or good.
The Google search page interface is an example of a Zen UX interface.
The FileMatrix file manager is an example of a terrible interface from a discussion on Stack Overflow. Do not go, he will devour you.
The more actions there are in the interface, the longer the user will have to get to the functionality of the program, site or application, and the faster he will spit on it and go looking for an interface with a single button that brings the result.
If the interface is a layer between the user and the code that launches the latter into operation, then the frontend is the same code. Take, for example, a Wikipedia page. To open it, we give the command to the browser: "And show." The browser requests from the external server the building material of the page - the code. This code is executed on the page and draws what you asked the browser.
It is worth noting that front-end is often understood as web development. Because of the duality in the definition, there is a debate about how to write this term in English: separately or through a hyphen. This publication sheds light on the problem .
The frontend consists of the interaction of three technologies:
One press of F12, and the page shows everything that is hidden under it.
A tool that receives data and displays it in a human-readable form is called the client side, or client. This tool is a browser, a mobile application that works with data from a server, computer, phone, tablet, TV or radio.
Nobody will serve these clients.
The concept of the client side has emerged from the paradigm of client-server architecture. It appeared along with the first computer networks: the developers decided that part of the shared resources can be stored outside the device. The device in this case is the client: it receives data from an external service, draws it in itself and sends the changes back to the service.
A client is a device for handling remote data.
An interface is a set of elements for managing a program or device. A
frontend is a code accepted by a client, launched on it and becoming an interface, or web development on the client side as such.
The example will help to finally understand the difference. If you are asked, on pain of death, to answer the question of what the Chrome browser is - the client side, frontend or interface - feel free to answer: “Client side”. And so that the enemy silently gives up weapons, specify that a single page is already an interface, and a frontend works inside it.
It is not so scary to repeat the same term in the text, as recklessly replace it with incorrect synonyms. If you want to point out inaccuracies and controversial points or express anything on the topic - welcome to comment.
Once in the technical environment, I realized that verbal decorations interfere with the function. Together with the trend of info-style, this made me reconsider my approach to working with texts. Including the time has come to remember that each term has its own meaning.
When working on a project caseI found myself designet that I consider the terms “front-end”, “client side” and “interface” to be synonyms. In order to dot all the i and not confuse them anymore, I wrote this memo. I hope that it will help not only me, but also my colleagues - editors, copywriters, technical journalists, marketers, project managers and everyone who has no direct relation to programming.
Interface
All that helps a person control a tool, whether it is a program, a computer, a household appliance or a panel of a factory machine, is an interface. Interface elements are menus, buttons, keyboard, mouse, monitor, switches, toggle switches, toolbars, typing fields, error screens and other ways of interacting and input / output of information. In relation to the interface of programs and applications in English, the phrase user interface (UI) is found.
An interface is all that you see and that you can touch.
The interface can be convenient and inconvenient. The criterion of a convenient interface by today's standards is a short series of actions that does not infuriate, does not bother, does not exhaust, and ultimately gives the desired result. The sum of the sensations of using the interface is called the experience of interaction, user experience or user experience (UX). It can also be bad or good.
The Google search page interface is an example of a Zen UX interface.
The FileMatrix file manager is an example of a terrible interface from a discussion on Stack Overflow. Do not go, he will devour you.
The more actions there are in the interface, the longer the user will have to get to the functionality of the program, site or application, and the faster he will spit on it and go looking for an interface with a single button that brings the result.
Frontend
If the interface is a layer between the user and the code that launches the latter into operation, then the frontend is the same code. Take, for example, a Wikipedia page. To open it, we give the command to the browser: "And show." The browser requests from the external server the building material of the page - the code. This code is executed on the page and draws what you asked the browser.
It is worth noting that front-end is often understood as web development. Because of the duality in the definition, there is a debate about how to write this term in English: separately or through a hyphen. This publication sheds light on the problem .
The frontend consists of the interaction of three technologies:
- HTML (HyperTextMarkupLanguage). The markup language of the document, understandable to browsers through descriptors, or tags. HTML indicates what elements are on the page, sets their order in the document and nesting one in another;
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, or cascading style sheets). Gives HTML a special look, ennobles it: emphasizes and changes the color of links, sets the size of headers or fonts, etc .;
- Javascript A programming language that has access to page and browser elements, manipulates data in HTML and CSS, and serves as a magical pendell for them, because HTML and CSS themselves do nothing. Using JavaScript, for example, animation works in the browser and all sorts of interactive things. There are in all browsers except Opera Mini, where it is limited by the manufacturer to simplify the work.
One press of F12, and the page shows everything that is hidden under it.
Client side
A tool that receives data and displays it in a human-readable form is called the client side, or client. This tool is a browser, a mobile application that works with data from a server, computer, phone, tablet, TV or radio.
Nobody will serve these clients.
The concept of the client side has emerged from the paradigm of client-server architecture. It appeared along with the first computer networks: the developers decided that part of the shared resources can be stored outside the device. The device in this case is the client: it receives data from an external service, draws it in itself and sends the changes back to the service.
Fastening
A client is a device for handling remote data.
An interface is a set of elements for managing a program or device. A
frontend is a code accepted by a client, launched on it and becoming an interface, or web development on the client side as such.
The example will help to finally understand the difference. If you are asked, on pain of death, to answer the question of what the Chrome browser is - the client side, frontend or interface - feel free to answer: “Client side”. And so that the enemy silently gives up weapons, specify that a single page is already an interface, and a frontend works inside it.
It is not so scary to repeat the same term in the text, as recklessly replace it with incorrect synonyms. If you want to point out inaccuracies and controversial points or express anything on the topic - welcome to comment.