Basically backend deals with communications and networks ?
Frontend is what is being actually interacted with by the intended user.
In a car the frontend is:
- Steering wheel
- Gear stick
- Wheels
- Seats
- Pedals
- Lamps
- Ports for pouring in oil, windscreen washer, fuel
- All the different buttons on the dashboard and elsewhere
- Doors
- Keyholes
In a car the backend is:
- Engine
- Gearbox
- Fuel pump
- Cabling
- The actual lightbulbs inside the lamps
- Mechanism for reacting to key being turned in the lock
Etc.
Frontend is what is what is being physically used, backend is what actually makes all of this function. Of course anyone can also go poke at the backend, but without some very deep knowledge, you’re bound to break something. Better let the backend specialists (regarding cars: a mechanic) handle whatever counts as backend if they need to be touched.
In a physical shop the frontend is anything the customer interacts with, while backend includes for example the workers’ pause room, the intermediate storage for goods brought to the store by lorries, etc.
Generally speaking (not just computing)
Front facing or Frontend is what the end user sees and interacts with. The public side of a system.
Backend is the hidden part of the system that allows the front actually do the things people want it to.In practice, “backend” changes meaning depending on context. It’s a relational boundary between two layers of a system.
The most typical meaning I’ve heard is referring to the server side, where front is the web app and back is the API.
But I’ve heard developers refer to the database as the back, implying the endpoints are the front.
And I’ve even heard desktop app developers refer to the app logic as the back, where the UI is the front.
How to simplistically explain a web app and API ?
In that context, I’d call the web app (html, js, css… the stuff that runs in the browser, Angular, React Vue compilations, whatever) the front
The back would be the API server and the database, auth provider, remote services, whatever it’s calling, which the web app calls for the data it uses to populate the UI
I guess we could call the connections between browser and server kinda the line that separates front and back?
Let’s have a fresh look : could we bring in the comparison between the front office and the back office of any organisation ?
Or maybe the place where people sit and order and the kitchen in the case of a restaurant ??
Yeah totally, I dig it.
The customer (user) goes to the front desk (web app) and makes a connection with a representative (api) who goes back to the warehouse (database) to retrieve the item they requested
So everything the customer is doing is on the “front”, and everything the rep is doing is on the “back”
No, the networking layer connects the backend to the front end.
Think of it like a restaurant. You have back of house and front of house. Back of house is where the food is stored, prepared, and plated. Front of house is where customers enter, make a reservation, sit down, and place their orders. Waitstaff move orders from front of house to back of house and they move plates of food from back of house to front of house.
The backend is the part you control that does work you need to know is good (Translation, conversion, saving, generating, etc.)
The front end is a gentle suggestion that you hope clients use to connect to the backhand (the browser or app code).
))<>((
Are you talking about the backend of an IT system in a business?
Not just business, even for private use :))
It could be any number of different things. Definitely communications and networks, or a billing or accounting system, any type of security that’s in place, databases, a CRM system, internal messaging systems like Slack, things that manage loads on servers, the OS you’re using, the codebase you’re working with… things like that.
