Artistic Syntax

What is Hypertext Markup Language - HTML?

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the set of markup symbols or codes inserted into a file intended for display on the Internet. The markup tells web browsers how to display a web page's words and images.

Each individual piece markup code (which would fall between " < " and ">" characters) is referred to as an element, though many people also refer to it as a tag. Some elements come in pairs that indicate when some display effect is to begin and when it is to end.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the basic scripting language used by web browsers to render pages on the world wide web.
• HyperText allows a user to click a link and be redirected to a new page referenced by that link.
• Early versions of HTML were static (Web 1.0), while newer iterations feature a great deal of dynamic flexibility (Web 2.0, 3.0).
• Markup is the text that appears between two pointed brackets (e.g., ), and content is everything else.

HTML Explained

HyperText Markup Language is the computer language that facilitates website creation. The language, which has code words and syntax just like any other language, is relatively easy to comprehend and, as time goes on, increasingly powerful in what it allows someone to create. HTML continues to evolve to meet the demands and requirements of the Internet under the guise of the World Wide Web Consortium, the organization that designs and maintains the language; for instance, with the transition to Web 2.0.

HyperText is the method by which Internet users navigate the web. By clicking on special text called hyperlinks, users are brought to new pages. The use of hyper means it is not linear, so users can go anywhere on the Internet simply by clicking on the available links. Markup is what HTML tags do to the text inside of them; they mark it as a specific type of text. For example, markup text could come in the form of boldface or italicized type to draw specific attention to a word or phrase.

HyperText Markup Language Basics

At its core, HTML is a series of short codes typed into a text-file. These are the tags that power HTML’s capabilities. The text is saved as an HTML file and viewed through a web browser. The browser reads the file and translates the text into a visible form, as directed by the codes the author used to write what becomes the visible rendering. Writing HTML requires tags to be used correctly to create the author’s vision.

The tags are what separate normal text from HTML code. Tags are the words between what are known as angle-brackets, which allow graphics, images, and tables to appear on the webpage. Different tags perform different functions. The most basic tags apply formatting to text. As web interfaces need to become more dynamic, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript applications may be used. CSS makes web pages more accessible and JavaScript adds power to basic HTML.

What Is the CSS Profile?

The CSS Profile is a financial aid application used by more than 350 colleges, universities, and scholarship programs. It is administered by the College Board, the organization behind the SAT, PSAT, and other standardized tests.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The CSS Profile is a financial aid application required by some colleges, universities, and scholarship programs.
• Students who file a CSS Profile should also complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
• The CSS Profile asks for more information than the FAFSA, but, unlike the FAFSA, students and their families may only have to fill it out once.

Understanding the CSS Profile

The CSS Profile is used primarily by private colleges and universities to award nonfederal aid. Those include some of the nation’s most selective and expensive schools, such as Harvard, Northwestern, and Stanford. It is also used by some private scholarship programs.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), by contrast, is used to determine students’ eligibility for federal Pell grants, loans, and work-study programs. The FAFSA is also used by many public and private colleges and scholarship programs to award their own aid.

All students who hope to receive federal financial aid should fill out the FAFSA each year. Only students who are applying to a school or scholarship program that requires the CSS Profile need to fill it out. Some students (and their parents) will need to fill out both. The College Board provides a list of participating institutions and programs that use the CSS Profile on its website.

What is JavaScript (JS)?

Javascript (JS) is a scripting languages, primarily used on the Web. It is used to enhance HTML pages and is commonly found embedded in HTML code. JavaScript is an interpreted language. Thus, it doesn't need to be compiled. JavaScript renders web pages in an interactive and dynamic fashion. This allowing the pages to react to events, exhibit special effects, accept variable text, validate data, create cookies, detect a user’s browser, etc.

JS Explained

HTML pages are fine for displaying static content, e.g. a simple image or text. However, most pages nowadays are rarely static. Many of today’s pages have menus, forms, slideshows and even images that provide user interaction. Javascript is the language employed by web developers to provide such interaction. Since JavaScript works with HTML pages, a developer needs to know HTML to harness this scripting language’s full potential. While there are other languages that can be used for scripting on the Web, in practice it is essentially all Javascript.

There are two ways to use JavaScript in an HTML file. The first one involves embedding all the JavaScript code in the HTML code, while the second method makes use of a separate JavaScript file that’s called from within a Script element, i.e., enclosed by Script tags. JavaScript files are identified by the .js extension. Although JavaScript is mostly used to interact with HTML objects, it can also be made to interact with other non-HTML objects such as browser plugins, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) properties, the current date, or the browser itself. To write JavaScript code, all you need is a basic text editor like Notepad in Windows, Gimp in Linux, or BBEdit. Some text editors, like BBEdit feature syntax highlighting for JavaScript. This will allow you easily identify elements of JavaScript code. The latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera all support JavaScript.

What Is React Native?

React Native is a JavaScript framework for writing real, natively rendering mobile applications for iOS and Android. It’s based on React, Facebook’s JavaScript library for building user interfaces, but instead of targeting the browser, it targets mobile platforms. In other words: web developers can now write mobile applications that look and feel truly “native,” all from the comfort of a JavaScript library that we already know and love. Plus, because most of the code you write can be shared between platforms, React Native makes it easy to simultaneously develop for both Android and iOS.

Similar to React for the Web, React Native applications are written using a mixture of JavaScript and XML-esque markup, known as JSX. Then, under the hood, the React Native “bridge” invokes the native rendering APIs in Objective-C (for iOS) or Java (for Android). Thus, your application will render using real mobile UI components, not webviews, and will look and feel like any other mobile application. React Native also exposes JavaScript interfaces for platform APIs, so your React Native apps can access platform features like the phone camera, or the user’s location.

React Native currently supports both iOS and Android, and has the potential to expand to future platforms as well. In this book, we’ll cover both iOS and Android. The vast majority of the code we write will be cross-platform. And yes: you can really use React Native to build production-ready mobile applications! Some anecdota: Facebook, Palantir, and TaskRabbit are already using it in production for user-facing applications.