What Does a Web Developer Do?

Does the following code look familiar to you?

$(function(){ if($('#rob').hasClass('awesome')){ alert('Yeah, Rob is awesome!'); }});

Or maybe this?

<?php$bam = new Bam;$winner = $bam->testWinner();echo '<p>Are you a winner?</p>';if($winner){ echo '<p><strong>Yes, I believe you are!</strong></p>'; $bam->save(array('Person' => array( 'name' => 'You',  'winner' => 'Yes' )));}?>

If so, then maybe you could become a web developer!

If not, it's a good thing you've got people here that do. Developers like myself spend many hours in code such as the above in order to give you the website your business requires.

We turn requirements into code. You need to manage news & events via your website? Cool, just a small example of what that means: we would create database tables which stores every field you can manage, create an administration interface which retrieves and stores data to/from database and then we'd create what the public gets to see on your website. Each step involves creating code to interact and work in unison until you and your users get the nicely designed website to view.

For those that want to know a little more about this geeky stuff

The first code snippet is an example usage of jQuery, a useful javascript library, which allows client-side (user) interaction to happen without refreshing or reloading the page. This says if there is an element with an id of 'rob' alert the user to say 'Yeah, Rob is awesome!', which is totally a useful example. This technology wouldn't allow us to connect to grab data and connect to a database on its own.

The second code snippet is an example usage of PHP, a server side scripting language, which allows server-side manipulation to happen before displaying a page. This code suggests there is a class which tests to see if the current user is a winner? If so, it lets you know you are and saves a record into the database. If you wanted to run a test again, you would need to reload the page.

Now the perfect blend of these two technologies is called AJAX, spray and wipe (ok not spray and wipe, but if you see the ads on TV you'd know what that referred to), it uses javascript to fire off a request to another page which could be running a server-side language (such as PHP). Suddenly you can stay on the same page while loading/saving data on the fly! This is pretty standard on many websites now, but all these technologies have their time and place on when to use each.

Besides code, we'll be involved in adding SSL certificates, advise on hosting, setting up databases and way more.

Want to know more about how we can turn your business ideas or requirements into an interactive website built by experts? Why not contact the team here at Bam Creative and we would be happy to speak to you.