Question 1

What is a backend?

Accepted Answer

The backend is the part of an app that runs out of sight on another computer, doing the work you asked for and keeping the data. In a restaurant, the kitchen is the backend. You never walk in there, but it is where your order is actually made.

Question 2

What is a database?

Accepted Answer

A database is an organised place where an app stores information, so it can find, change and add to it later. In a restaurant, the pantry is the database: every ingredient has a labelled shelf, so the cook can find it fast.

Question 3

What are tables, rows and columns in a database?

Accepted Answer

A table holds one kind of thing, like customers. Each row is one item (one customer) and each column is one detail about it (like their city). Think of a class register: the whole sheet is the table, each line is one pupil (a row) and each heading, like "Name" or "Age", is a column.

Question 4

What is an API?

Accepted Answer

An API is a messenger with fixed rules: it carries your request to the backend and brings the answer back. In a restaurant, the waiter is the API. You don't walk into the kitchen; you tell the waiter, using the menu, and the waiter brings the food back.

Question 5

What is authentication?

Accepted Answer

Authentication is how an app checks that you are who you say you are, for example with an email and password. At a members-only club, the doorman checks your membership card before letting you in. That check is authentication.

Question 6

What is file storage in an app?

Accepted Answer

Storage is where an app keeps whole files, like photos, videos and PDFs, while the database keeps a short note of where each file is. A restaurant keeps big items like wedding cakes in the walk-in fridge (storage) and writes "Cake for table 4: fridge, shelf 2" in the order book (database).

Question 7

What is a server function?

Accepted Answer

A server function is one small job that runs in the backend only when the app asks for it, like working out a delivery fee or sending an email. It's like one recipe card in the kitchen: when an order for pancakes comes in, the cook follows that one card, and you only see the pancakes.

What you don't see: backend and data, explained with a restaurant

Follow an order through the restaurant

The 7 words in this module