Coding For Dummies

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part 1 Getting Started with Coding

Chapter 1 What Is Coding?

Defining What Code Is

Following instructions

Writing code with?some Angry Birds

Understanding What Coding Can Do for You

Eating the world with software

Coding on?the job

Scratching your own itch (and becoming rich and famous)

Surveying the Types of Programming Languages

Comparing low-level and high-level programming languages

Contrasting compiled code and interpreted code

Programming for the web

Taking a Tour of a Web App Built with Code

Defining the app’s purpose and scope

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Chapter 2 Programming for the Web

Displaying Web Pages on?Your Desktop and Mobile Device

Hacking your favorite news website

Understanding how the? World Wide Web works

Watching out?for your front end and back end

Defining web and mobile applications

Coding Web Applications

Starting with?HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Adding logic with Python, Ruby, or PHP

Coding Mobile Applications

Building mobile web apps

Building native mobile apps

Chapter 3 Becoming a Programmer

Writing Code Using a Process

Researching what you want to?build

Designing your app

Coding your app

Debugging your code

Picking Tools for?the Job

Working offline

Working online with?Codecademy.com

Part 2 Building the Silent and Interactive Web Page

Chapter 4 Exploring Basic HTML

What Does HTML Do?

Understanding HTML Structure

Identifying elements

Featuring your best attribute

Standing head, title, and body above the rest

Getting Familiar with Common HTML Tasks and Tags

Writing headlines

Organizing text in paragraphs

Linking to your (heart’s) content

Adding images

Styling Me Pretty

Highlighting with bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough

Raising and lowering text with superscript and subscript

Building Your First Website Using HTML

Chapter 5 Getting More Out of HTML

Organizing Content on the Page

Listing Data

Creating ordered and unordered lists

Nesting lists

Putting Data in Tables

Basic table structuring

Stretching table columns and rows

Aligning tables and cells

Filling Out Forms

Understanding how forms work

Creating basic forms

Practicing More with HTML

Chapter 6 Getting Stylish with CSS

What Does CSS Do?

CSS Structure

Choosing the element to style

My property has value

Hacking the CSS on your favorite website

Common CSS Tasks and Selectors

Font gymnastics: size, color, style, family, and decoration

Customizing links

Adding background images and styling foreground images

Styling Me Pretty

Adding CSS to your HTML

Building your first web page

Chapter 7 Next Steps with CSS

Styling (More) Elements on Your Page

Styling lists

Designing tables

Selecting Elements to Style

Styling specific elements

Naming HTML elements

Aligning and Laying Out Your Elements

Organizing data on the page

Shaping the div

Understanding the box model

Positioning the boxes

Writing More Advanced CSS

Chapter 8 Working Faster with Twitter Bootstrap

Figuring Out What Bootstrap Does

Installing Bootstrap

Understanding the Layout Options

Lining up on the grid system

Dragging and dropping to a website

Using predefined templates

Adapting layout for mobile, tablet, and desktop

Coding Basic Web Page Elements

Designing buttons

Navigating with toolbars

Adding icons

Build the Airbnb Home Page

Chapter 9 Adding in JavaScript

What Does JavaScript Do?

Understanding JavaScript Structure

Using Semicolons, Quotes, Parentheses, and Braces

Coding Common JavaScript Tasks

Storing data with variables

Making decisions with if-else statements

Working with string and number methods

Alerting users and prompting them for input

Naming code with functions

Adding JavaScript to the web page

Writing Your First JavaScript Program

Working with APIs

What do APIs do?

Scraping data without an API

Researching and choosing an API

Using JavaScript Libraries

jQuery

D3.js

Searching for Videos with YouTube’s API

Part 3 Putting Together a Web Application

Chapter 10 Building Your Own App

Building a Location-Based Offer App

Understanding the situation

Plotting your next steps

Following an App Development Process

Planning Your First Web Application

Exploring the Overall Process

Meeting the People Who Bring a Web App to Life

Creating with designers

Coding with front- and back-end developers

Managing with product managers

Testing with quality assurance

Chapter 11 Researching Your First Web Application

Dividing the App into Steps

Finding your app’s functionality

Finding your app’s functionality: My version

Finding your app’s form

Finding your app’s form: The McDuck’s Offer App design

Identifying Research Sources

Researching the Steps in the McDuck’s Offer App

Choosing a Solution for Each Step

Chapter 12 Coding and Debugging Your First Web Application

Getting Ready to Code

Coding Your First Web Application

Development environment

Pre-written code

Coding steps for you to follow

Debugging Your App

Part 4 Developing Your Coding Skills Further

Chapter 13 Getting Familiar with Ruby

What Does Ruby Do?

Defining Ruby Structure

Understanding the principles of Ruby

Styling and spacing

Coding Common Ruby Tasks and Commands

Defining data types and variables

Computing simple and advanced math

Using strings and special characters

Deciding with conditionals: if, elsif, else

Input and output

Shaping Your Strings

String methods: upcase, downcase, strip

Inserting variables in strings with #

Building a Simple Form-Text Formatter Using Ruby

Chapter 14 Wrapping Your Head around Python

What Does Python Do?

Defining Python Structure

Understanding the Zen of Python

Styling and spacing

Coding Common Python Tasks and Commands

Defining data types and variables

Computing simple and advanced math

Using strings and special characters

Deciding with conditionals: if, elif, else

Input and output

Shaping Your Strings

Dot notation with upper(), lower(), capitalize(), and strip()

String formatting with %

Building a Simple Tip Calculator Using Python

Part 5 The Part of Tens

Chapter 15 Ten Free Resources for Coding and Coders

Learning-to-Code Websites

Codecademy

Coursera and Udacity

Hackdesign.org

Code.org

Coding-Reference Websites

W3Schools

Mozilla Developer Network

Stack Overflow

Tech News and Community Websites

TechCrunch

Hacker News

Meetup

Chapter 16 Ten Tips for Novice Coders

Pick a Language, Any Language

Define a Goal

Break Down Your Goal into Bite-Sized Steps

Distinguish Cupcake from Frosting

Google Is a Developer’s Best Friend

Zap Those Bugs

Just Ship It

Collect Feedback

Iterate on Your Code

Share Your Success and Failure

Index

EULA