Software Development vs Web Development?

The Problem with referring yourself as a Web Developer in 2021 is that it could mean a lot of things. You might be someone building websites with WordPress, Drupal, or any other CMS. You might be someone using WebFlow or Elementor to build websites with a drag and drop interface. Or, You might be someone like me, Someone who builds full-fledged software that runs inside a browser.

This is where we should draw the line between a website and a modern web app. Websites are boring. It is funny how a website built in the early 2000s and a modern web app like Notion or Slack use the same technology. At least, at a ground level. Everything on the web is composed of HTML, CSS, and JS. Whenever you hear the usual buzz words put around like "React", "Vue" or "Nuxt.js", They aren't anything out of this world, While these frameworks allow you to write code that looks nowhere near to normal HTML or Vanilla JS, At the end of the day, they just get compiled into plain old HTML, CSS, and JS.

Browsers don't understand anything apart from these three. The very foundation of Frontend web development is still using the same technologies for the past 20 years behind the scenes. It is still technically possible to write a Full-fledged web app like Notion with plain HTML and JS. But practically speaking, it is almost impossible to scale something like it without using a modern frontend framework.

The line between "Software" and "Website" is slowly shrinking. While I don't like calling Gmail or Slack "Websites", They still are good old websites. When you say the word "Software", it is usually installers and executables that come to mind. While still, some software requires these things, For the most part, modern software today runs inside the browser. And funnily enough, you can now write installers and executables using the same technologies that you use to write websites.

https://www.electronjs.org/ is one such framework that allows you to do the same.

It is really confusing to refer to people who build websites with WordPress and people who build modern web apps using the same term. And with frameworks like React Native, You can also build Mobile apps with the same technologies used to build websites. So now, What do you call them? App developers? Web Developers? Or Software Developers?

With expertise in a handful of skills related to web development, You can literally build anything today. The opportunities are endless. Hence, I take pride in saying, In today's world, for the most part,

Web Development === Software Development