Many technologies have emerged to facilitate browser-based development. Here, we look at those technologies in an effort to identify the best web programming languages for website development today.

A career in web development is lucrative, exciting and ever changing. It requires a particular set of well-honed skills and a knowledge of languages that you’ll need to keep updating, year after year.

Front end web development  deals with the part of the web that the user interacts with – the part that pretty much everyone who uses the internet is familiar with. Back end web development deals with all those things that run in the background to make websites or web apps work, like databases and scripts.Then there are full stack web developers, who can do all of the above.

Java

Java is the gold standard in web development all over the world, in every area. It’s object oriented, class based and works on any platform, making it extremely versatile. If you want to make your safe employable to pretty much every tech company in the world, this is the way to go.

Python

A new kid on the block compared to some other languages in this list, Python is extremely easy to learn and is a dynamic, all-purpose language. Although more popular as a back end language, it can do pretty much anything you want it to.

JavaScript

A front end language used for creating and developing websites, desktop apps and games. JavaScript runs on all browsers and can be worked with on programs that are not web based. It supports both functional and object oriented programming styles, and is basically your go-to for making stellar user interfaces and websites/apps/games that look super cool.

CSS / HTML

Hand in hand with JavaScript is CSS and HTML – together they make up the holy trinity of front end web development. HTML (Hyper Text Mark Up Language) is the language of web browsers – what websites are made with. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes them look cool and better than those awful sites from the early days of the web.

C++

General purpose, well compiled and around since 1979, C++ is an object oriented, very technical language. Extremely powerful and with extensive libraries, this is one of the cornerstone languages of back end development.

PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language used to form dynamic web pages, fast. A great choice for both front and back end developers to add to their arsenal (but especially the latter), it’s behind such web giants as WordPress and Facebook. PHP makes it quick and easy to expand web apps and run websites that have repeated server tasks .

Ruby

Scalable, simple and super fast, Ruby and Ruby on Rails is a dream team duo that offers a full stack language and framework to build full programs and web apps, fast. It’s a favourite among entrepreneurs and start ups, and has a wide selection of third-party ‘gems’ (add-ons) that can make it do pretty much whatever you need it to. Twitter and Basecamp use Ruby language.