Bummer! This is just a preview. You need to be signed in with a Basic account to view the entire video.

Preview

Start a free Basic trial
to watch this video

Sign up for Treehouse

HTML, CSS, and Web Development

2:16 with Treasure Porth

While many popular web sites add interactivity with JavaScript and use backend languages like PHP, Python, and Ruby to store and retrieve data from a database, HTML and CSS are fundamental building blocks that make up much of what you see in the browser.

Treehouse Blog: I Don't Speak Your Language: Frontend vs. Backend

  • 0:00

    HTML and CSS are a fundamental part of all websites.

  • 0:04

    But for many websites like Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, HTML and CSS

  • 0:08

    are just two of many other technologies they use to provide their services.

  • 0:13

    You may have heard of JavaScript, PHP, Java, Python, MySQL or Ruby on Rails.

  • 0:19

    These are just a few of the technologies that are used to create today's

  • 0:22

    complex websites.

  • 0:24

    Web Development is often split into two areas, front end development and

  • 0:28

    back end development.

  • 0:30

    Front end developers use HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build what the client sees.

  • 0:34

    The stuff that runs on the browser.

  • 0:38

    Backend developers are responsible for what runs on the server.

  • 0:42

    They use languages like Python, Ruby, and

  • 0:44

    Java to work with databases to save, change, and retrieve data.

  • 0:49

    As an example, JavaScript runs in the browser to add interactivity to a page.

  • 0:54

    Like if you wanted to have a window pop up each time your user clicks a button or

  • 0:58

    if you wanted to display a group of images with the slide show.

  • 1:01

    You'd use HTML and CSS to build and style the slide show and JavaScript

  • 1:07

    to program the slide show images, so that they slide in and out of view.

  • 1:11

    Or think about a log in page for

  • 1:12

    website like Facebook, you'd use HTML to create input field and submit button.

  • 1:18

    And use CSS to control what the button and the input fields look like.

  • 1:22

    But when a user presses enter or click submit, you might use JavaScript

  • 1:26

    to make sure the information they submitted is formatted correctly.

  • 1:29

    That their email address contains an @ symbol, for example.

  • 1:33

    You also might use JavaScript to throw up an error or

  • 1:35

    a success message when the form is submitted.

  • 1:38

    And then you might need a backend language like PHP, Python, or

  • 1:41

    Ruby to save the username or email address to a database to retrieve it later.

  • 1:47

    That's how HTML and CSS fit into the larger field of web development.

  • 1:52

    As we've seen, HTML and CSS are the foundation of websites and

  • 1:56

    web applications.

  • 1:57

    If it's on the web, it uses HTML and CSS in some capacity, which is why

  • 2:02

    learning the basics is an excellent way to start your journey learning how to code.

  • 2:07

    In the next part of this course,

  • 2:08

    we're going to go into a little more detail about how web pages are structured

  • 2:12

    and learn all about the most common and useful HTML tags.

  • 2:15

    I'll see you there.

You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.

Sign up