Summary

In this chapter, we covered the background content for working with web applications. We learned about HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the three core technologies used on the World Wide Web today. We also learned about HTTP, the protocol used to request a website from a web server and then receive a response from that server.

We then explored static web pages, which made up the majority of the World Wide Web in the early days. However, as the web became more commonplace, the need for dynamic web pages increased. Initially, that process was very rudimentary, but eventually many web frameworks were created to simplify that process.

A web framework follows the same request-response model used by HTML. However, it uses the path of the web request, along with any additional data included in the request, to determine what page to render. This is a process called routing.

Finally, we saw how many template engines today support template inheritance, allowing us to define a hierarchical set of templates that make each page in our web application include the same basic information and structure.

With this information in hand, we can start building a web application as part of our semester project.

Review Quiz

Check your understanding of the new content introduced in this chapter below - this quiz is not graded and you can retake it as many times as you want.