Abstract:
The “front-end languages” live in the browser. After you type an address into the address bar at the top and hit the enter/return key, my browser will receive at least an HTML file from the webserver. That file will likely tell the browser to request a CSS file and a JavaScript file as well (probably many more than one, but we’ll keep it simple).
Each of these languages performs a separate but very important function and they work harmoniously together to determine how the web page is STRUCTURED (HTML), how it LOOKS (CSS), and how it FUNCTIONS (JavaScript). And keep in mind that my browser handles figuring out how to make these files into a functioning web page (not the server).
Front-end web development is NOT design (you won’t be playing around in Photoshop or anything), but a front-end developer does apply the work of designers to the web page by translating their well-designed layouts into real code. The front-end developer stands between the designer on one end and the back-end developer on the other, translating the design into code and plugging the data from the back-end developer into the right spots. He or she must also handle all the possible interactions that the user may need to make with the page.
On the front end, I will need to be highly conscious of who my user is and how they will be interacting with my web page because I am building their gateway to my page or product. This may mean gaining a strong understanding of accessibility and things like responsive development down the line, but first, I need to build up my toolkit and pick up the fundamentals of the front-end languages.
In the following lessons, you’ll get a healthy understanding of each of the three front-end languages (the most popular JavaScript library). To get warmed up, we’ll start at a high level.
