What’s going on…?
This blog is going to follow along with my as I begin my coding journey. From knowing little to nothing, aside from basic HTML, I aim to be proficient in the basics of Full Stack Web Development in a short 9 month window. Starting this course during a worldwide pandemic is a strange environment to facilitate learning and personal growth, but I feel will ultimately make this course even that much more memorable in the long run. Here are a few questions posed to me before I enter the classroom for the first time.
- What excites you about coding? How do you think it can change the world?
Coding to me is the basis for almost all of our current interaction daily, the world is increasingly moving to a virtual setting and the code that makes this possible is almost imperative to understand. My initial reason and interest in coding came from being frustrated at a “language” that surrounds me, yet one that I simply do not understand. Second though I’d love to make a career change and find joy in creating things that anyone worldwide could access and use.
I believe it can change the world through empowerment. Coding can be learned essentially for free, and a classroom setting may benefit some but more often is a privilege many do not have. By understanding code one can create for themselves utterly anything they can think of, and in turn this can open doors for people career-wise that just did not exist a few decades ago. Coding is empowerment and understanding for a world that is quickly becoming digital.
2. What does doctype do at the top of your HTML file? Why does this need to be specified?
DOCTYPE, or document type declaration, is necessary for a basic but important reason, it declares to the browser what “type” of document to expect. Without it the browser will not know what “language” is being communicated to it, and cannot process and display the code.
3. Explain how a browser determines what HTML elements match a CSS selector?
The browser is going to follow what is called “order of inheritance” to determine what styles will be applied to HTML elements. In the case of conflicting information being relayed about the same elements the browser will cascade in a specific order. First the browsers default style, second the user’s specified styles, and third the styles linked by our document.
4. What’s the difference between an HTML element and and HTML tag?
The HTML tag is just the opening and closing brackets, <p></p>, and the element is the open and close tags as well as all the information in between, <p>This is the element</p>.
5. In your own words, explain the cascade of CSS?
The cascade is at the core of CSS, obviously CSS stands for cascading style sheets. When conflicting rules are written they both can’t be applied to the same element, therefore with the cascade rule the last rule written will be applied. Specificity matters and two rules, to my current understanding, cannot be applied to the same element.
6. Explain, to someone you know, the 3 ways to link/use CSS in an HTML file to style a web page.
There are 3 ways to link CSS to HTML, as stated above, and they can be defined as inline, internal, and external.
- Inline- you can use the style attribute inside the html element. <h2 style=”color:pink;”>
- Internal- in the <head> section of the HTML you can use a <style></style> element to apply CSS attributes, but within your current HTML
- External- you may link directly from your HTML to a CSS file, also within the <head></head>. It looks like <link rel=”stylesheet” href=”style.css”>
