MDN Web Technology Reference

MDN HTML

The HTML (HyperText Markup Language) page explains what it is (the code which defines the structure of a web page), what it does and it's basic components (such as elements and tags). The page also provides resources for further study. From this page, one could learn more of the basics of using HTML or find references to specific areas of the code to research.

MDN CSS

This page explains that CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) is the stylesheet language which codes the presentation of how the elements coded for in HTML are rendered or more simply how the web page actually looks. From this page, one can go further to learn how to use CSS or access references to help with the various properties and values used to develop a page layout.

MDN DOM

The DOM (Document Object Model) is explained here as a representation of the document in a format which allows it to be further manipulated or modified. It can be visualized as a tree of "objects". The DOM is not a programming language itself, but is an interface which provides a way to access and interact with the document, allowing other programs to make changes to the document. This page also gives an overview of how the various languages such as Javascript or Python access the DOM and introduces the concept of APIs.

MDN Javascript

Javascript is a programming language which allows users a way to interact with a web page by utilizing scripts, although it's use has grown beyond it's use in web page development. By using scripts to provide variable parameters, the user is provided with a more dynamic experience. While this page is an overview, it provides a link to a Javascript Guide which show how to use JS and gives an overview of the language. I can see this being invaluable in this class to help further explain or clarify the different concepts we will be learning.

Summary

As it is the job of a browser to read and make sense of the code a web developer has written, it is important that the code is clean and it's syntax is clear and well organized so that the browser understands what data to return so that the page is rendered correctly and without errors. Therefore, having trusted resources and references will help a developer write code to accomplish this. Using an unreliable source may give an end result with unintended results or even introduce bugs causing a page to be corrupted.