for the "Web Stuff" beginner's club talk

web-basics.md

Internet vs Web

Main things about the web: hypertext and URLs

Core Web Technologies

• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• Web browsers

This is everything we had back in 1994.

Frontend and Backend

• also called client and server
• Frontend: runs on your computer. can happen offline.
• Backend: runs on some other computer.
• example: DoorDash

Demo: Chrome Devtools Network Panel

• plain HTML website

More Web Technologies

• CSS: "My website is ugly"
• JavaScript: "My website is static and boring"
• Cookies: "My website never remembers me"

Demo: JSFiddle

Tinker with stuff! Annoying signup modal

Useful sites

• Gomix for hacking fullstack web apps
• JSFiddle for hacking frontend stuff

Questions to ask yourself

• Do I need my own backend?
  • maybe I just need static file hosting
• Do I need a database?
  • maybe a file is just fine
• Do I need a frontend JS framework?
  • if it's really simple, then probably not
• Do I need 3rd party CSS?
  • if you don't know, then probably yes. just use bootstrap
• Do I need a backend web framework?
  • you probably want at least a simple one (like Express)

Random stuff

Backend related

• Nodejs
• Express
• Flask
• Rails
• Django
• Jinja
• Jade
• Mongodb
• Postgres
• SQL
• relational database
• REST
• JSON
• API
• HTTPS
• MVC

Frontend related

• SPA: Single Page App
• React
• JSX
• Redux
• Angular / Ember / Vue.js
• Handlebars
• jQuery
• Bootstrap
• AJAX
• DOM
• callback / promise
• Webpack
• ES6
• Babel