Front ends
The front end is everything a website runs in the visitor's browser. This skill trains you to tell apart the three ways of making a page, to see what frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue and Svelte are for and what they cost, to know when a site builder or a theme beats a custom build, and to judge a front end the way its visitors and its future developers will: on speed, search engines, accessibility, how long its tools will last and who can maintain it.
- Three ways to make a pageA page's HTML is made in advance, by a server at each visit, or by a script in the visitor's browser, and that choice decides how fast the page appears, what search engines see, how fresh it is and what it costs to run.
- Components and stateFrameworks build a page from components written once and used everywhere, and redraw them from the state, which someone has to decide where to keep.
- The main frameworksReact, Angular, Vue and Svelte do the same job in different ways, and the frameworks built on them (Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit) and Astro add pages made in advance or on a server, so the choice depends on the team, the project and the years ahead.
- Site builders and themesFor a site that is mostly content or a standard shop, a builder or a theme gives a finished front end in days, as long as someone keeps that ready-made code up to date.
- Judging a front endA front end is judged on what visitors get on their own devices (weight, speed, search engines, accessibility) and on the years ahead (how long its framework is supported, and who can be hired to maintain it).