Learning resources

The different languages have very different functions in web development. HTML is the skeleton of the website and the actual building blocks. How these building blocks are positioned, sized and generally styled is what we describe in CSS. CSS could be viewed as the face of the website, it’s what makes it looks good. Lastly, JavaScript is what gives the website life and handles its functionality. It’s with JavaScript that we define the events on button clicks, page loads and more. JavaScript is also where we post and get data from a database. Ruby is the language which Ruby on Rails is built with, which in turn is a web application framework. It contains libraries and tools that allows us to more easily build a website. E.g., does one not have to write the JavaScript code for pressing a button on the website since Ruby on Rails has tools for doing this for us! Below there are some guides and code references to these different languages. I would recommend doing a few guides till you feel comfortable with the structure of a web project and its coding styles. After that, you can take a look at our own project and start familiarizing yourself with that. The best way to get to know our project is by looking at the structure live in a browser while changing things. This is described in step 1-4 in Standard workflow.

Web programming

The following sections contains links to Codeacademy courses and some relevant questions for you to answer for the languages discussed above.

Questions

  • What is the structure in all HTML files and what are their functions?
  • What is a div?
  • What is a class and id and how can one use them in a CSS file?
  • How does an onClick event look like in jQuery (JavaScript)

Ruby

Read through Understanding the basics of Ruby on Rails HTTP MVC and routes and answer the following questions:

  • What does MVC stand for and what are the functions of each part?
  • What is the main task of the Rails router?