A lot of people complaining about a free course from Microsoft? I scanned through it and covers a decent amount of what one wants and needs to know. Plus, it's free. Guess it's impossible to please people nowadays.
Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
71–80 of 111 posts
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#72about JavaScript, CSS, and HTML basics ...and this is where it goes off the rails; teaching JS before HTML is how we will continue to have the ridiculous proliferation of app-sites that shouldn't require a single line of JS instead needing the latest version of $browser (you have a choice of browser - pick one ...) to even show any content at all. Forms don't need any JS to work, yet the impression this gives to begi…
This view that you don’t need JS and can do most things natively is tired and screams of old timers trying to cling on to the past, when web pages didn’t have rich user interactions and good UX. Sure, you can build forms that perform full page refreshes, but ajax requests offer a better user experience.
When someone has just barely crossed the "hello world" stage, I don't think they should be thinking about asynchronous XHR requests, or be pulling up user experience research to find the optimal shade of red for making input validation errors appear less aggressive to middle aged women with a bachelor degree in communications who are part-time employed in marketing.
Let's start with getting data from the form to your back-end, and once we've got those must-have basics down, then we can start introducing the nice-to-have bits.
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#73about JavaScript, CSS, and HTML basics ...and this is where it goes off the rails; teaching JS before HTML is how we will continue to have the ridiculous proliferation of app-sites that shouldn't require a single line of JS instead needing the latest version of $browser (you have a choice of browser - pick one ...) to even show any content at all. Forms don't need any JS to work, yet the impression this gives to begi…
Looks like the first few lessons use Javascript to give an introduction to programming and not to web development in general. I don't see any agenda. Just teach programming on the language a web developer will happen to use later.
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#74about JavaScript, CSS, and HTML basics ...and this is where it goes off the rails; teaching JS before HTML is how we will continue to have the ridiculous proliferation of app-sites that shouldn't require a single line of JS instead needing the latest version of $browser (you have a choice of browser - pick one ...) to even show any content at all. Forms don't need any JS to work, yet the impression this gives to begi…
> The agenda is obvious to anyone who cares to look. Alternatively: it's just teaching whatever is popular in the industry, for better or worse (similarly to how DevOps people would be taught Kubernetes, even if it can be horrible in certain cases and for smaller projects). Many sites out there don't need JS. Server side rendering would suffice. And many other sites out there would be well served with minimal JS for…
I teach that kind of stuff at university — I would never think about teaching JS before HTML and CSS. Students should understand what ia possible with HTML and CSS alone. Then we look at the server side, and understand infrastructure and how servers can potentially deliver different HTML and CSS depending on the request and then we start introducing JS as a means to replace serverside stuff, to enrich HTNL and CSS or to interact with REST APIs without reloading the page etc.
But understanding the infrastructure is key here. Understanding the "M" in HTML, understanding the "C" in CSS, understanding http etc.
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
But to master JS tools you want rock solid fundamentals and know about default behavior, writing clean HTML and CSS. I even teach more about networking and HTTP than JS. They actually want to know: what happens when I type an url into the browser?
While I agree with you that knowing the basics is obviously helpful and desired, in the end what gets you your first job isn't "what happens when I type a URL into the browser". What gets you your first job is you knowing how to use the tools that the companies already use to ship software solutions on the web. If they use react, webpack, graphql, then your best bet at getting your first job is learning enough about…
Have we misunderstood each other? I'm talking about teaching web fundamentals to absolute beginners, not people who are already programmers or CS graduates. In terms of content think starting with something of this scope: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Getting_start... and then building on that.
The fundamentals are clearer and more accessible to teach than frameworks. This inspires confidence and I'm pretty sure you won't save any time if you jump ahead and teach React and especially Graphql. You have a _way_ better foundation to learn and use React if you know HTML, CSS, JS, HTTP that I mentioned but also browser dev tools and I would even put git before that. Also people who are already professionals in some field close to web dev will ask fundamental questions, they want to understand things.
Learning framework X is a piece of cake if you at least roughly understand how it works and aren't on completely shaky grounds, and when framework Y comes along you can ask the right questions right away.
The _vast_ majority of web development doesn't use React or Graphql anyway. I don't even know a single dev who knows React and Graphql but cannot make a website without them or doesn't know what DNS is, what common HTTP headers mean or don't know how to center a div.
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
But to master JS tools you want rock solid fundamentals and know about default behavior, writing clean HTML and CSS. I even teach more about networking and HTTP than JS. They actually want to know: what happens when I type an url into the browser?
While I agree with you that knowing the basics is obviously helpful and desired, in the end what gets you your first job isn't "what happens when I type a URL into the browser". What gets you your first job is you knowing how to use the tools that the companies already use to ship software solutions on the web. If they use react, webpack, graphql, then your best bet at getting your first job is learning enough about…
I have worked with people who are "fullstack" with Javascript + Typescript, but do not even know what a CPU core is.
Some are even amazed that a basic HTML page can be created with a plain text editor.
Such people are "ReactJS" specialists, not even Javascript/Typescript specialists. One cannot easily engage in a conversation on types with them - not that they are negative or close-minded, but such concepts are in the "unknown unknowns" for them.
Nope. Knowing the fundamentals does not take all that very long and can in fact go a long way in enabling someone to pick up newer technology.
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This view that you don’t need JS and can do most things natively is tired and screams of old timers trying to cling on to the past, when web pages didn’t have rich user interactions and good UX. Sure, you can build forms that perform full page refreshes, but ajax requests offer a better user experience.
Native dropdowns have much (much!) better UX and accessibility than most custom dropdowns built with JavaScript. Same goes for native form validation. And there are many more examples. Using JavaScript does not necessarily improve UX. Use the platform where it makes sense. Extend it with JavaScript where needed. Make it work for everybody and make it better for capable browsers. That is called progressive enhancement…
You can say the same about computers in general. No computer is preferable over having to use one.
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#78about JavaScript, CSS, and HTML basics ...and this is where it goes off the rails; teaching JS before HTML is how we will continue to have the ridiculous proliferation of app-sites that shouldn't require a single line of JS instead needing the latest version of $browser (you have a choice of browser - pick one ...) to even show any content at all. Forms don't need any JS to work, yet the impression this gives to begi…
Please could you inform me how you would build a form that creates, lets say a secondary loan for a company with attached assets. The assets could be zero, or many.
How would you create this form without Javascript? Would you require a user to create the assets before the loan?
Saying that HTML provides everything a developer needs to provide an application to client is so ridiculous, I have no idea why this sentiment is so popular. the vitriol expressed for front end devs from the community seems out of place.
Forms work without JS for the most basic baby forms. the moment you go enterprise, more is needed. which is where JS steps in, What am I missing here?
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#79It's good that they jump in with JavaScript right from the start. This way people learn right away that HTML/CSS are just helper technologies in the whole process of creating Web apps.
hello sir, how do I create webapp without html/css, thank you
Re: Web Development for Beginners – A Curriculum
#80There’s a clear agenda when accessibility is the 3rd course.