“If you hold a UNIX shell to your ear, Do you hear the C ?”
“No but I found a Perl”
Today in class, we covered the basics of coding and what you’ll read below, if you are interested, is a basic outline of what was discussed and may help you to one day understand the nerdy puns I wrote above.
HTML is scripting language which is tag based. “< >” <head> </head> <h1> </h1> <title> </title> <p> </p> etc, It can be mixed in with english language to to describe the content inside said tag. For example, labelling a header so a web browser can display the text as a header. The evolution of HTML is to add more and more detail to the tags.
Schema’s are diagrams used to show how each HTML tag interacts with each other.
HTML (Tim Burners Lee) came from SGML, which was a way to create a template (or Schema) to organise information. HTML was a way to cut down on these tags and schemas, and just use the basics, so that everyone can code for them more easily. HTML5 is the way we are now adding back in more and more tags so that there is increased functionality.
CSS is a way of separating properties and formatting from HTML tags. The <div> tag is a separator tag. It cuts the document apart and makes what is inside the tag related and meant to be together which helps with semantics. You can use this as a way of creating a Style sheet.
A Responsive theme is a webpage with a collection of Style Sheets. For example, one for Desktop viewing, one for Mobile, one for a tablet, and they can be employed dynamically. You can do so much more with CSS, like animation, background images etc. all of which is linked with presentation and formatting.
Javascript – Javascript is able to detect input. I.E Keystrokes, mouse-clicks, dragging, gestures, hover, microphone and ever screen refresh, or screen resize (Going back to style sheets in CSS) and more.
For example: By typing in a URL, we are sending a request to a domain hosting site for a page/document. Once the request is received, it is then sent and copied to the cache* file in your browser, so you can view the page. (Before it arrives to your screen, if there is any PHP coding in there, it will inject that code into the webpage and then you receive it).
*A Cache is a way of saving the images, page structure and text to your computer so that you don’t have to download it over and over after many views.
Javascript allows new information to be updated on a page without having to refresh the entire web browser and it’s user interface. I.E. Facebook live updates, Live blogs that self update.
Javascript is a Application Logic Language or a Programming language.
“IF my code is being viewed on a tablet, THEN I want the background to be blue”
“IF my code is being viewed on a Mobile, THEN I want my layout to be portrait”
After learning about these three different languages, we then went on to write our own basic code in Dreamweaver. Although what we have learned is only very basic, I believe having a basic understanding is vital for everyone. I will extend my knowledge in the future by learning more about PHP, cloud computing and C++.
Thanks for reading!
Leave a comment below if you have any questions or ideas.
ArtFX 