What is Web Coding?
Web coding is the process of creating websites using specific coding languages. These languages include HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. By learning these skills, you can create a website that offers advanced functionality and looks good on all devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. It also allows you to customize your site’s theme and integrate advanced features, making it easier to manage and maintain your site.
Tech is a notoriously confusing industry, and when it comes to tech jobs, web development can be especially murky. If you’ve done even the shallowest Google rabbit hole regarding tech careers, you’ll have probably seen job titles like “front end developer,” “back end developer,” and “full stack developer” thrown around—without much clarity as to what these roles actually MEAN.
So, what is web coding? Essentially, it’s the process of turning the designs created by web designers (a separate role) into what you see on your screen. Web developers are the cornerstone of all things tech—without them, there would be no websites, mobile apps, or the internet as we know it. And, because of this, they’re one of the most coveted tech positions out there.
The coding language for a website is HTML, which is the most basic of all coding languages. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and it is used to describe the structure of a web page. The companion coding language, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is then used to determine how the page is displayed on the screen. All websites use HTML and CSS in some way, meaning that understanding the basics of these coding languages is important to becoming a web developer.
In order to make a website, you will need a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++. It is important to use a raw text editor, rather than a formatted word processor as these will insert characters that are not valid HTML code. To get started, open up your text editor and type in the following skeleton:
Once you’ve added this to your file, save it and then open it in a browser. You should now see the skeleton for your website appear in the browser window. To add additional elements to your website, simply add another line of code in between the
For example, to add a title for your website, type in the following code:
Once you’re ready to start building your own websites, there are a number of online resources that can help. These can be found by searching for ‘HTML/CSS Tutorials’ in your preferred search engine. These are often free to use, but some may require you to sign up with a premium membership to access full-featured tutorials. If you want to build a website from scratch, you can use HTML/CSS Frameworks such as Bootstrap or Foundation.