Browsers
Browsers are the interpreters of the web. They request information and then when they receive it, they show us on the page in a format we can see and understand.
- Google Chrome– Currently, the most popular browser brought to you by Google
- Safari– Apple’s web browser
- Firefox– Open-source browser supported by the Mozilla Foundation
- Internet Explorer– Microsoft’s browser. You will most often here web developers complain about this one.
HTML
HTML is a markup language. It provides structure of a website so that web browsers know what to show.
CSS
CSS is a Cascading Style Sheet. CSS let’s web designers change colors, fonts, animations, and transitions on the web. They make the web look good.
- LESS– a CSS pre-compiler to make working with CSS easier and add functionality
- SASS– a CSS pre-compiler to make working with CSS easier and add functionality
Programming Languages
Programming languages are ways to communicate to computers and tell them what to do. There are many different programming languages just like there are many different lingual languages (english, spanish, french, chinese, etc). One is not better than the other. Developers typically are just proficient at a couple so they promote those more than others. Below are just some of the languages and links to their homepages
- JavaScript– used by all web browsers, Meteor, and lots of other frameworks
- Coffeescript– is a kind of “dialect” of javascript. It is viewed as simpler and easier on your eyes as a developer but it complies (converts) back into javascript
- Python-used by the Django framework and used in a lot of mathematical calculations
- Ruby– used by the Ruby on Rails framework
- PHP– used by WordPress
- Go– newer language, built for speed.
- Objective-C – the programming language behind iOS (your iPhone), lead by Apple
- Swift– Apple’s newest programming language
- Java– Used by Android (Google) and a lot of desktop applications.
Frameworks
Frameworks are built to make building and working with programming languages easier. Frameworks typically take all the difficult, repetitive tasks in setting up a new web application and either do them for you or make them very easy for you to do.
- Meteor– a full-stack (front and back end) javascript framework
- js– a server-side javascript framework
- Ruby on Rails– a full-stack framework built using ruby
- Django– a full-stack framework built using python
- Ionic– a mobile framework
- Phonegap / Cordova– a mobile framework that exposes native api’s of iOS and Android for use when writing javascript
- Bootstrap– a UI (user interface) framework for building with HTML/CSS/Javascript
- Foundation– a UI framework for building with HTML/CSS/Javascript
- WordPress– a CMS (content management system) built on PHP. Currently, about 20% of all websites run on this framework
- Drupal– a CMS framework built using PHP.
- .NET– a full-stack framework built by Microsoft
- js– a front-end javascript framework.
- js– a front-end javascript framework.
- js– a front-end javascript framework.
Libraries
Libraries are groupings of code snippets to enable a large amount of functionality without having to write it all by yourself. Libraries typically also go through the trouble to make sure the code is efficient and works well across browsers and devices (not always the case, but typically they do).
- jQuery
- Underscore