Some things you should know if you are a newbie to computer science
What happens if the one you like, invites you to go to a Hackathon? Or your boss wants you to attend a computing event? What if your brother-in-law who is a computer freak, sits next to you during the Christmas dinner and he won’t stop talking about his profession?
Below we have provided the 101 of Computer Sciences:
1. How does the Internet work?
The Internet is like a super super network of computers connected in between them. It uses a client-server protocol and this means that some computers are servers and others are clients. Clients ask (a web request) and servers reply.
2. What is a web browser?
For accessing all the information on the Internet, we have to use a web browser. We can visualize texts, images, videos, etc. and interact with all of this, because it dives between all the information contained in the servers. Some examples of web browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.
3. What should I take to a Hackathon?
Only your hunger of learning. Hackathons are social events of flexible duration where people meet to solve a problem in a creative way with the use of technology. Usually people meet in groups of 4–5 members to work together. You can have previous knowledge but “noobs are welcome!”.
4. What is a programming language?
It is the language used for talking and communicating to our computer…and there are many of them. It’s like speaking in English, French, Portuguese or Swahili with your machine and it understands you, like a polyglot. Like a language, they have content, structure and rules of syntax.
If you have understood everything to this point, you must have many questions about this fantastic and enigmatic world, such as how is a web page built?
We can use the programming languages explained above and tell our computer how to build a web page.
The most popular programming languages to learn in order to do that are:
5. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language):
It is the standard markup language used for building a web page or a web application. It is use to point out the web page structure semantically such as headings, paragraphs, lists, the menu, the footer, and the rest of the page. Some people may think when reading this, that HTML includes design for web pages, however, it’s not true. This language only makes use of how to order the content of a web page.
6. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets):
This is the language used for describing how HTML elements are to be displayed on. These style sheets can be used to define text styles, table sizes and other aspects. If it were a house it would be the painting, the furniture, and the decorations in general.
7. JavaScript(JS):
This is used for enhancing the HTML. It creates the dynamic and interactive content within web sites such as animations in order to give some ‘spark’ to a web page.
These three languages complement each other to create a cooler website.
With these few concepts you will be able to be in your element and you will no longer think that you are talking with alien people. …
Article written by Olga Juan and me …
