Developing for the web
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There are several ways to write code for the great web. You can use IDEs (integrated development environment), but since webpages live inside the browser I like to use the browser to check that the webpage behaves as I want it to do.
This chapter might be a bit (very) biased by my preferences, but I will also include links to other alternatives, for those of you who are curious. This chapter will mostly talk about things you have not learned yet. I would recommend coming back to this chapter afterwards, when you have read about HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You will most likely get more out of this chapter then. Okay, let's go!
In choosing a developing tool for the web, there are a lot of possibilities. In this course it is recommended using a text editor that allow you to write your code yourself, and understand it by highlighting keywords and give some help in autocompletion. The three editors listed below does so. These are also extendable if you want to add to their functionality later on.
Although it was a larger problem before, there is still differences between the different browsers in how they interpret CSS, what standards are implemented and how they interpret ambiguous code.
And as if that was not enough, there are also differences between different versions of the same browsers. But these differences are mostly concerned with what standards are implemented.
What do I mean with "implemented standards"? World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the international standard organisation for the world wide web. They recommend how e.g. CSS should behave, but it is up to the browser developers to implement them. After a standard is adopted by the W3C, it might take some time before it is implemented in new browsers.
W3schools' HTML, CSS and Javascript tutorials https://www.w3schools.com/
Mozilla Developer Network: Documentation and tutorials on HTML, CSS and JavaScript (the author's personal favourite) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
Superherojs: A collection of JavaScript resources http://superherojs.com/
Codeacademy: A selection of tutorials where you write code in the browser https://www.codecademy.com/
Eloquent JavaScript: An excellent introduction to JavaScript http://eloquentjavascript.net/
As both HTML and CSS are quite forgiving, meaning that it might look right but not have been done right, W3C have developed validators for both languages. By uploading or linking to your files, the validator will go through your code and look for mistakes or errors that doesn't follow their HTML and CSS specifications. You can find the HTML validator here, and the CSS validator here.
