Working of Any Software

Front End & Back End

Front End – It is part of the overall software which actually interacts with the user who is using the software.
Back End – It is a part of the overall software which does not directly interact with the user, but interact with Front End only.

If a user wants to have some information from the system, i.e. Balance Sheet.

User will interact with Front End part of the software and request front end to generate the report.
Front End will receive the instruction from user and pass it on to the back end.
Back End will process the data, generate the report and send it to the front end. Front end will now display the information to user.
This is how the process gets completed each and every time.

Reason	Restaurant	Software
Domain Expertise	A waiter is expert in handling customers; a cook is expert in cooking. These two jobs are separate and should not be mixed with each other. Both the jobs must be performed with topmost quality.	Front end software is meant for handling requests from users. Back end software is meant for storing and handling the data.
Presentation	Waiter can present himself as well as the food in a better way. Everybody likes good presentation. One cannot expect a good presentable cook as he/she works in kitchen.	Front end software interacting with a user is meant for presenting information in proper format, different colors, bold, italic letters, tables, charts, etc. Back end software is not meant for it and it can’t be expected also.

User Experience	Waiter handles processed food and not raw material. Whole process of getting desired food from ordering to billing should be smooth and user experience should be very good. This is supposed to be done by well-trained waiter. This cannot be expected from a cook.	Front end software should guide a user to the desired report or feature. Front end software handles processed data and not raw data like back end. User interface of the front-end software needs to be intuitive, i.e. minimum use of help should be sought by user.
Speed	After placing an order, customer expects a quick delivery of food, nobody likes waiting period. This is possible only with segregation of duties. Waiter will handle the customers only. Cook will keep on cooking only. Repeating the same activity again and again increases expertise and efficiency.	Using single software for both the aspects would unnecessarily increase the load and slow down the speed. Separate back end software is used for handling data only. This reduces the load and increases speed of operations.
Language	A waiter needs to be polished and polite. He/she needs to understand language of the customer and speak to the customer in the language in which the customer is comfortable. Cook has to do nothing with this aspect as he is not interacting with customers. His job is to prepare best quality food only.	Front end speaks in the language understood by the user and understands language spoken by the Backend. Back end speaks in technical language not understood by a layman. Front end can speak in the languages, user’s language and technical language.

Application Software

In most software, there are three layers which together form the application. An application layer, an operating system layer and a database layer. This is called a Three Tier architecture. The application layer receives the inputs from the users and performs certain validations like, if the user is authorized to request the transaction.

The operating system layer then carries these instructions and processes them using the data stored in the database and returns the results to the application layer.

The database layer stores the data in a certain form.

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