A web development process is one of the first things modern web developers must grasp. This article will show how web developers nowadays acquire code from their local workstations and deploy it to live servers to visit their website or utilize a web application in their browser.

Everything begins on a local computer.

When web developers begin work on a website or web application, they usually do so on their personal computers. As a result, the code is generally divided into two sections: frontend and backend.

Developers refer to the frontend as HTML, CSS, Javascript, and everything else provided to the user when they access the website and is interpreted by the web browser.

Everything that happens on the server-side and all the programs that run there is referred to as the backend. PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Java and.Net are commonly used in these programs. On the backend, we frequently have a database that keeps information such as registered users' details, the content of website articles, or products for an online store. MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB are the most often used databases.

Git keeps track of code changes.

Apart from the database content, all source code on the local computer is usually saved in a version control system called Git. Git allows developers to track changes to code, create different versions of a project by generating branches, and go back to any prior version of the committed code, among other things.

Git in the cloud: GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket

Any modern software development project should use Git for version management. But it's when Git is pushed and stored on the cloud via services like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket that it shines. The newest version of the code moved in Github can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet. As a result, an entire team may securely and effectively work on the same project without fear of destroying the code, and keeping the code in the Git cloud enables improved deployment methods for the code.

Continuation of Integration and Delivery (CI/CD)

We may utilize continuous integration and delivery services to automate the source code deployment after having the code in the cloud in services like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. These services can access the code stored in Git in the cloud, check the code (at least in part), and deploy it to our hosting environment if it passes all tests. Codeship, CircleCI, and GitHub Actions are some of the services used here. Once configured, CI/CD services can use our code committed to a cloud Git repository and deploy it to our hosting provider's testing and live environments automatically.

Hosting entails the code and database of a website.

Our code is transferred from our local git repository via Git in the cloud and a CI/CD provider. The user can view our project in a web browser if a domain name is reserved and configured for our website or application. Additional operations on the server that require the use of shell scripts and an SSH connection are occasionally required (like creating a database structure for the database on the server).

FTP

Developers occasionally utilize FTP or SFTP to move their code to the webserver instead of using GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and one of the CI/CD cloud services. It is a straightforward method of deploying code to the server. However, it is no longer advised.

Use a web browser

Consumers can open our website or web application in their web browsers once the code is on the live server and we've assigned it a domain name. Then, any requests (for example, domain.com/blog) are sent to the server, which causes backend scripts to run to build the page, and the frontend (HTML, CSS, and Javascript) to be returned interpreted, and shown to the users' web browsers.

Repeat

Suppose we need to make any more changes to our project. In that case, we follow the same steps: we make changes in our local repository, push them to Git in the Cloud (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket), which initiates a CI/CD activity, and our code is deployed to our hosting provider once more.

The procedure described above is a current web development workflow. Of course, this workflow may alter significantly depending on the firm and individuals working on the project. Still, I believe it provides every new developer embarking on a web development journey with a solid sense of how an effective and efficient web deployment process looks these days.