core Estimated learning time: 9 h

OE1-5.1 Web Basics, HTML5 & CSS

You can explain browsers, web servers, URLs, MIME and HTTPS, and build pages with HTML5 tags, images, tables, lists, forms, layout, graphics, span and div, grid and cascading style sheets.

The request-response cycle is the mental model everything else hangs on: a browser asks a server for a URL, the server answers with bytes and a MIME type that says how to interpret them. Keep structure and presentation separated from the start — HTML says what a thing is, CSS says how it looks — because mixing them is the habit that makes pages unmaintainable. Span versus div is the inline-versus-block distinction and it is worth getting right early.

Work through these

  • WWW browsers and web servers

    The two programs the whole subject is about, and the conversation between them. Knowing which side does what prevents most later confusion.

  • URL, MIME and HTTPS

    How a resource is named, how its type is declared, and how the connection is secured. These three are the vocabulary the rest of the course assumes.

  • HTML5 basic tags

    The markup itself, starting with structure rather than appearance. Keeping structure and presentation separate is the principle the styling item returns to.

  • Images, tables and lists

    The content elements you will use most. Tables are for data and not for layout, which was a hard-won lesson worth inheriting.

  • Forms

    How a page takes input, which is where the web stops being read-only. It is the front end of everything in the later topics.

  • Layout, graphics, span and div tags

    The elements that group content so it can be positioned and styled. They carry no meaning themselves, which is exactly their purpose.

  • CSS grid

    The modern way to arrange a page in two dimensions. It replaced a long history of workarounds, and learning it first saves learning those.

  • Cascading style sheets

    Separating appearance from structure, which is the principle the first item raised. The cascade is the part that surprises people, so it repays attention.

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