When you look at a framed painting, what do you notice? The canvas, paint strokes, or maybe even the colours—all of these components can make a painting stand out, but only together do they make a complete work of art. This is the essence of web development, and today we will go over the components that make up basic web development and how to make them work together. From HTML and CSS to modern frameworks like React, we will delve into the world of web development.
In a digital context, the canvas and forms that make up a painting represent HTML, and the colours are CSS. HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the main coding language used to create the structure of a webpage. Headers, text, titles, images, and all other components that appear on a website are all created using HTML. Learning HTML is essential, but on its own, websites are very bland, with little visual appeal. This is where CSS comes in. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is the primary method for styling HTML pages. Through the use of selectors and modifiers, the sky's the limit when it comes to styling with CSS. Colors, sizes, shapes, and almost every other aspect of an HTML element can be curated into a beautiful design using CSS. Both HTML and CSS are used hand in hand to create the painting that is a website, but the biggest difference between the two is that, unlike a painting, a website can be interactive and responsive. That is where JavaScript comes in. JS is a very powerful scripting language that can be used to create almost anything, from games to weather apps. JavaScript is a must-have when it comes to designing websites, as it allows you to design not only front ends but also back ends with Node.js. However, that's a topic for another day.
Using the technologies mentioned above, you can create any web app you can imagine, even with a very limited foundation. With a little bit of practice, there is no looking back. But what if there were an easier way? In the modern age, many frameworks have been created for web development, which removes the need to start from scratch. It is comparable to using a recipe instead of experimenting to find the perfect ingredients when creating a dish. These frameworks allow you to use and create pre-existing website components and weave them together to create websites. A few examples include React, Next.js, Bootstrap, etc. Once you become knowledgeable in basic HTML, CSS, and JS, you can expand your skills by utilizing these libraries.
As you have seen, web development is like creating a piece of art with added capabilities. From the basics of HTML and CSS to advanced frameworks like React, web development is all about piecing together useful components to create an amazing website. But as with all crafts, you will never truly become a master until you put in the time to understand and learn these core technologies. Embrace these tools and put them into practice, and the next time you visit a website, you'll be thinking, "I can create this!"