Introduction
Welcome to the prework for the MakerSquare Front End Web Development Course. This course is a part-time offering that runs for ten weeks, twice a week in the evenings.
It is a professional development course that caters to people from a variety of different backgrounds that teaches web development for fun and for work. It allows people, who may not be able to make the financial and time commitment of the Immersive program, to learn essential web development skills.
The hardest part of learning to code is the beginning
That's why this course is so great. Setting up your development environment, learning to understand your tools, and grasping fundamental concepts in programming are all things that are challenging to do on your own. This is especially the case when you have a full-time job with little free time and no accountability.
The resources for learning are good in isolation but often times don't connect the concepts well. Plus, many authors are experts and don't remember what it was like at the beginning.
Through this course, we will help you cross these hurdles. You will have the accountability you need, the support you want, and classmates who are all working to similar goals.
This course is just the beginning
This course will give you knowledge and application of that knowledge. However, professional developers got where they are from experience. They built a lot of sites and worked their way through problems along the way. There is no substitute for building projects as a way to improve.
This is a lifelong learning experience. Web Development technologies and tools can change within 6 months so it is essential to keep up. Try following great developers on Twitter and their blogs. Stay curious.
How long will prework take?
Pro Tips:
- Turn off your mobile phone
- Go to a cafe or library to escape distractions
- Get caffeinated
Studies show that a single disruption during deep concentration results in a 20 minute time to recover back to the same level of concentration. That's a text message, incoming call, or a "honey, when are we buying our flight to the wedding?". If you're trying to get this done quickly, escape distractions.
Why Learn Front End Web Development?
Front End refers to the use of HTML, CSS, and Javascript for controlling the presentation of a webpage. These languages are understood by all web browsers on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.
Whether you are using a Back End like WordPress, SquareSpace, BigCommerce, Volusion, or a host of other website services/frameworks, you will always be editing HTML, CSS, and Javascript to control how your website is presented.
By learning these technologies, you become your own publisher. Gone are the days where you wait for an unresponsive web developer to make edits to your site. Gone are the days when you thought the internet was magic.
What's the difference between Front End and Back End?
Front End code is executed on the client.
A client is the browser that is receiving the website code. Think Google Chrome. Chrome translates the code you write into the sites you see.
Back End code is executed on the server.
If your website needs to have users, a database, or any sort of e-commerce functionality, you want that code to be executed on your own servers so you can protect your data. It's difficult to execute secure code on the client and often, it doesn't make sense to.
Servers send the HTML/CSS/JS to the client and often times can just send data to the client. For example, your Facebook news feed updates without refreshing. That's an example of the browser just asking the Facebook back end for data, not a full blown web page.
You can have web sites without a back end.
There is a difference between 'web sites' and 'web applications'. 'Web sites' are static while 'web applications' are programs that serve up HTML/CSS/JS based on certain conditions. Your friend's portfolio website or your local restaurant is probably just static files being hosted on a server.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are web applications because they are storing data, keeping track of users, and serving up custom HTML/CSS/JS relative to the circumstances of it being loaded. You don't have the same News Feed as your mom. Nobody is sitting there editing static HTML so you can see the latest vacation photos from that guy who got away.
Through the Front End class, you will learn how to contribute presentation-related code to any website or web application.