The Road Ahead
Here I go with the cliché titles again. But like Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Clichés are the hammer and screwdriver in the toolbox of conversation. Everyone knows how to use them.”
At the start of class I had a pretty good understanding of how websites were built. But most of what I knew was still based on what I had learned many years ago. It was still pre-HTML 5 in my head. Although the structure of html hasn’t changed too much since then, the control and styling has changed greatly. After 4 weeks of this intense learning schedule, my understanding of what goes into a website has changed greatly. It’s hard to look at a site now and see some of what went into making it. And when I’m not sure how they did it, I can dive into it and find out.
This course teaches more than coding and that’s great. The start of each lesson is a section on how to better yourself. Think in a new way. See the world differently. Even see yourself differently. That part of each lesson is just as important as the coding part. It’s one thing to learn how to code and program. It’s another thing to learn how to apply yourself to being a part of the industry and a world.
Even after these 4 weeks of class, I can already start to see a direction for the future. But it’s still hazy. Almost like the shape of something through the fog. It looks familiar but I can’t make it out yet. With each project and assignment I work on I can feel the fog lifting a little more. But that shape changes a little each time too. Right now I can see myself working on web design projects 10 months from now. But after the next section of class, I’m sure I’ll be able to see myself doing that 10 months from then. Without learning everything that the class has to teach first, the future is a lot of “what if” and “could be”. But those are all still true. All the things I can picture now and the ones I don’t even know about yet are all real possibilities.
One of the things I’ve learned so far in class is the proper way to link and organize CSS style sheets and Javascript files. Since the browser reads and executes from top to bottom, it’s best to link any style sheets in the head of the document in cascading order. The browser reads the head first to pull information it needs to render the page it’s about to read. It also needs to open and read any style rules at this point so it knows how to create the HTML info it will display. All of that happens in a fraction of a second. But it all needs to happen in the right order. The same goes for the Javascript files that are linked or inline. Those are best at the bottom of the body file so the browser can create the elements that it may need to find and affect. If placed in the head, it may run the functions or look for elements that haven’t been created yet. I’ve learned that one the hard way.
HTML 5 has many building blocks. Some are greater than others but all of them are important to the final results. The DOM is the structure that these blocks are built upon. Starting with the Window and Navigator, then the Document. These are the foundation that the blocks are built over. From there the elements have a descending importance. The HTML is a strong base to build from. Then each element built into the HTML is a little smaller. And each element built onto that element is a little smaller. It creates a strong and durable structure with spires of information and style.
The style sheets have many different ways of targeting certain elements. Some use ID’s and classes to be specific. But there are ways to target elements without having to name each one. :nth-of-type() can target a specific type element based on it’s position within another element. For example, it can be used to target only the 3rd <p> element inside of a particular <div>. But what if you need to target the 3rd element inside that <div> regardless of what it is. :nth-child() will do just that.
Those are examples of CSS-selector specificity. It’s the ability to target just those elements that you want to affect. Whether it’s through the ID, class, or pseudo selector like :nth-child().
Learning outside of class is just as important and in-class learning. Blogs, podcasts, news, and other sites are wealth of information. I try to find some useful articles or blogs to read when I can. Most mornings, I eat my breakfast while scrolling though the news feed on my phone. And the more I search web development stories, the more my news feed auto populates them as well. So each day it becomes easier and faster to find useful stories and tricks about web development. We’ll see what stories today brings with it.
