Coding For Dummies (eBook)

Nikhil Abraham was Director of Business Development & Growth at Codecademy. In that role, he taught and trained thousands of beginning coders across a variety of professions. He helped refine Codecademy's online courses, which have introduced basic coding skills to millions of learners.

Title Page 5
Copyright Page 6
Table of Contents 9
Introduction 15
About This Book 16
Foolish Assumptions 16
Icons Used in This Book 17
Beyond the Book 17
Where to Go from Here 18
Part 1 Getting Started with Coding 19
Chapter 1 What Is Coding? 21
Defining What Code Is 22
Following instructions 22
Writing code with?some Angry Birds 23
Understanding What Coding Can Do for You 23
Eating the world with software 24
Coding on?the job 25
Scratching your own itch (and becoming rich and famous) 26
Surveying the Types of Programming Languages 27
Comparing low-level and high-level programming languages 28
Contrasting compiled code and interpreted code 29
Programming for the web 30
Taking a Tour of a Web App Built with Code 30
Defining the app’s purpose and scope 30
Standing on the shoulders of giants 31
Chapter 2 Programming for the Web 33
Displaying Web Pages on?Your Desktop and Mobile Device 34
Hacking your favorite news website 34
Understanding how the? World Wide Web works 37
Watching out?for your front end and back end 38
Defining web and mobile applications 39
Coding Web Applications 40
Starting with?HTML, CSS, and JavaScript 41
Adding logic with Python, Ruby, or PHP 41
Coding Mobile Applications 42
Building mobile web apps 43
Building native mobile apps 44
Chapter 3 Becoming a Programmer 47
Writing Code Using a Process 48
Researching what you want to?build 49
Designing your app 50
Coding your app 51
Debugging your code 52
Picking Tools for?the Job 52
Working offline 53
Working online with?Codecademy.com 53
Part 2 Building the Silent and Interactive Web Page 55
Chapter 4 Exploring Basic HTML 57
What Does HTML Do? 57
Understanding HTML Structure 58
Identifying elements 59
Featuring your best attribute 60
Standing head, title, and body above the rest 62
Getting Familiar with Common HTML Tasks and Tags 63
Writing headlines 64
Organizing text in paragraphs 65
Linking to your (heart’s) content 66
Adding images 67
Styling Me Pretty 68
Highlighting with bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough 69
Raising and lowering text with superscript and subscript 70
Building Your First Website Using HTML 71
Chapter 5 Getting More Out of HTML 73
Organizing Content on the Page 73
Listing Data 75
Creating ordered and unordered lists 76
Nesting lists 76
Putting Data in Tables 77
Basic table structuring 78
Stretching table columns and rows 80
Aligning tables and cells 81
Filling Out Forms 84
Understanding how forms work 84
Creating basic forms 85
Practicing More with HTML 87
Chapter 6 Getting Stylish with CSS 89
What Does CSS Do? 89
CSS Structure 91
Choosing the element to style 91
My property has value 93
Hacking the CSS on your favorite website 94
Common CSS Tasks and Selectors 95
Font gymnastics: size, color, style, family, and decoration 96
Customizing links 100
Adding background images and styling foreground images 102
Styling Me Pretty 106
Adding CSS to your HTML 107
Building your first web page 109
Chapter 7 Next Steps with CSS 111
Styling (More) Elements on Your Page 112
Styling lists 112
Designing tables 115
Selecting Elements to Style 118
Styling specific elements 118
Naming HTML elements 122
Aligning and Laying Out Your Elements 123
Organizing data on the page 123
Shaping the div 125
Understanding the box model 127
Positioning the boxes 128
Writing More Advanced CSS 132
Chapter 8 Working Faster with Twitter Bootstrap 133
Figuring Out What Bootstrap Does 134
Installing Bootstrap 135
Understanding the Layout Options 136
Lining up on the grid system 137
Dragging and dropping to a website 139
Using predefined templates 140
Adapting layout for mobile, tablet, and desktop 140
Coding Basic Web Page Elements 142
Designing buttons 143
Navigating with toolbars 144
Adding icons 146
Build the Airbnb Home Page 147
Chapter 9 Adding in JavaScript 149
What Does JavaScript Do? 149
Understanding JavaScript Structure 151
Using Semicolons, Quotes, Parentheses, and Braces 152
Coding Common JavaScript Tasks 153
Storing data with variables 153
Making decisions with if-else statements 154
Working with string and number methods 158
Alerting users and prompting them for input 160
Naming code with functions 160
Adding JavaScript to the web page 162
Writing Your First JavaScript Program 163
Working with APIs 163
What do APIs do? 164
Scraping data without an API 166
Researching and choosing an API 167
Using JavaScript Libraries 167
jQuery 167
D3.js 168
Searching for Videos with YouTube’s API 169
Part 3 Putting Together a Web Application 171
Chapter 10 Building Your Own App 173
Building a Location-Based Offer App 174
Understanding the situation 174
Plotting your next steps 175
Following an App Development Process 175
Planning Your First Web Application 176
Exploring the Overall Process 177
Meeting the People Who Bring a Web App to Life 179
Creating with designers 179
Coding with front- and back-end developers 181
Managing with product managers 182
Testing with quality assurance 183
Chapter 11 Researching Your First Web Application 185
Dividing the App into Steps 186
Finding your app’s functionality 186
Finding your app’s functionality: My version 186
Finding your app’s form 188
Finding your app’s form: The McDuck’s Offer App design 192
Identifying Research Sources 193
Researching the Steps in the McDuck’s Offer App 195
Choosing a Solution for Each Step 198
Chapter 12 Coding and Debugging Your First Web Application 201
Getting Ready to Code 201
Coding Your First Web Application 202
Development environment 202
Pre-written code 203
Coding steps for you to follow 206
Debugging Your App 209
Part 4 Developing Your Coding Skills Further 211
Chapter 13 Getting Familiar with Ruby 213
What Does Ruby Do? 214
Defining Ruby Structure 215
Understanding the principles of Ruby 215
Styling and spacing 216
Coding Common Ruby Tasks and Commands 217
Defining data types and variables 217
Computing simple and advanced math 218
Using strings and special characters 219
Deciding with conditionals: if, elsif, else 220
Input and output 222
Shaping Your Strings 223
String methods: upcase, downcase, strip 223
Inserting variables in strings with # 224
Building a Simple Form-Text Formatter Using Ruby 225
Chapter 14 Wrapping Your Head around Python 227
What Does Python Do? 228
Defining Python Structure 229
Understanding the Zen of Python 229
Styling and spacing 230
Coding Common Python Tasks and Commands 231
Defining data types and variables 231
Computing simple and advanced math 232
Using strings and special characters 234
Deciding with conditionals: if, elif, else 235
Input and output 236
Shaping Your Strings 237
Dot notation with upper(), lower(), capitalize(), and strip() 237
String formatting with % 238
Building a Simple Tip Calculator Using Python 239
Part 5 The Part of Tens 241
Chapter 15 Ten Free Resources for Coding and Coders 243
Learning-to-Code Websites 243
Codecademy 244
Coursera and Udacity 244
Hackdesign.org 245
Code.org 245
Coding-Reference Websites 246
W3Schools 246
Mozilla Developer Network 247
Stack Overflow 247
Tech News and Community Websites 248
TechCrunch 248
Hacker News 248
Meetup 249
Chapter 16 Ten Tips for Novice Coders 251
Pick a Language, Any Language 251
Define a Goal 252
Break Down Your Goal into Bite-Sized Steps 253
Distinguish Cupcake from Frosting 253
Google Is a Developer’s Best Friend 254
Zap Those Bugs 255
Just Ship It 256
Collect Feedback 256
Iterate on Your Code 257
Share Your Success and Failure 257
Index 259
EULA 291