Web Development Basics

Welcome to the foundational module of our web development series. This tutorial will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the core technologies that power the modern web: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

What is Web Development?

Web development is the process of building and maintaining websites. It involves creating the structure (HTML), styling (CSS), and interactivity (JavaScript) that users see and interact with in their web browsers.

The Three Pillars of the Web

1. HTML: The Structure

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It provides the basic structure and content of web pages.

Think of HTML as the skeleton of a webpage:

<h1> for main headings
<p> for paragraphs
<img> for images
<a> for links
And many more tags to define different types of content.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>My First Web Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
    <p>This is a basic HTML page.</p>
</body>
</html>

2. CSS: The Style

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in HTML or XML. It controls how HTML elements are displayed on screen, on paper, or in other media.

CSS dictates the look and feel:

Colors
Fonts
Layout (positioning, spacing)
Responsive design for different devices

Tip: CSS allows you to separate content from presentation, making your code cleaner and easier to manage.

body {
    font-family: 'Arial', sans-serif;
    background-color: #f4f4f4;
    color: #333;
    margin: 20px;
}

h1 {
    color: #0056b3;
    text-align: center;
}

3. JavaScript: The Interactivity

JavaScript is a programming language that enables you to create dynamically updating content, control multimedia, animate images, and pretty much everything else on a web page. It adds interactivity and dynamic behavior.

JavaScript makes websites come alive:

Handling user input (forms, clicks)
Updating content without reloading the page
Creating animations and visual effects
Fetching data from servers

function greetUser() {
    const name = prompt("What is your name?");
    alert("Hello, " + name + "!");
}

greetUser(); // Call the function when the page loads

Putting It All Together

These three technologies work in concert to create the rich, interactive experiences we expect from the web today. You'll typically see HTML defining the structure, CSS styling that structure, and JavaScript adding dynamic behavior.

In the following modules, we will dive deeper into each of these technologies. Let's get started!

Next Step: Explore the HTML Fundamentals module to learn more about structuring your web content.