What to Learn? -- Before Starting Web Development 🚀
Concepts you should learn before stepping into web development
1. How does the internet work?
2. What is HTTP?
3. DNS & How it works?
4. What are Domains?
5. What is Hosting?
1. How does the internet work?
We all use the term Internet for a wide variety of things, but do we actually know the proper definition for the Internet?
All we know is that it is a large network of computers. Yes, that is correct but do you know how it works, i.e. Do you know how this blog, which is stored in some Datacenter is displayed on your screen?
This specific blog when posted to hashnode was uploaded to some Data center’s server. This Datacenter could be situated thousands of miles away from you.
When you visit this website your browser sent a request to the server requesting for the data(i.e. the posts to loading). The server receives this request and sends back the data which then the browser displays onto your screen.
In short, this is what happens, but it is through the internet to which your device is connected this transfer occurs.
Every device is connected to the internet has a unique IP Address that is used for the transfer of data between two devices. While you visited this page your browser sent a request to the website’s server requesting the required data. The server receives the request and returns the data.
As the data is quite large in size it is broken down into packets that contain the payload(i.e. data), your IP address, and the server’s IP address
All these packets are sent through the internet to your IP Address. Just like while you travel the packets are routed through the route which has the least traffic at that instance to reach your IP Address.
After reaching the destination IP address, TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) checks whether all the packets are received or not and sends an acknowledgment to the server’s IP address. If TCP finds that some packets are missing or incomplete it will send a request to the server to send them again and once all the packets are received your page will be loaded up for you.
2. What is HTTP?
HTTP is also known as HyperText Transfer Protocol is an application layer protocol that is used for the communication between two devices and it forms the foundation of the World Wide Web. The whole World Wide Web is all about the communication between Web Clients (i.e. web browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Safari) and web Servers and these communications are done by sending HTTP requests and receiving HTTP Responses.
Whenever we click on a link or try to load a webpage an HTTP request is sent by the browser to the specific web server. The web server receives the request, runs the required applications to process the web request, and returns an HTTP response which contains the details such as the response codes and the data for which the request was sent.
These HTTP response status codes are divided into five groups as follows
- Informational responses (100 - 199)
- Successful responses(200 - 299)
- Redirects(300 - 399)
- Client errors (400 - 404)
- Server errors (500 - 599)
3. DNS & How it works?
If you want to visit LinkedIn you would open your browser and enter “linkedln.com” right?
What if you had to enter a group of random numbers separated by some dots(i.e 208.80.154.224) and not only for one website but for all the websites would you memorize all these and type it without a mistake?
DNS also known as Domain Name System is used to resolve this issue. Just like the full form implies it allots unique names so-called domains to each IP Address on the world wide web.
DNS eliminates the need for humans to memorize IP Addresses. The main purpose of DNS Servers is to convert the hostname(linkedln.com) back to their respective IP Address (i.e.208.80.154.224)
So that the client request will be delivered to the correct server and the response will be returned to the client successfully.
4. What are Domains?
Each one of us comes across many websites in our daily lives. We just enter them onto our web browser and visit them. The group of strings that you are entering is called a URL(Uniform Resource Locator) and it contains the domain name of the website as well as other components.
For example, if “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_learning” is the URL then “Wikipedia” will be its domain name.
Every device connected to the internet has its own IP Address. Like that each and every server also has its own IP Address and it is usually a group of numbers separated by dots(i.e. 208.80.154.224)
The data of any website are stored on different servers and in order to access them the client may request them. Hereby entering the URL "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_learning” the client is requesting the Peer Learning page data from the Wikipedia servers.
Here the client was able to quickly type in the URL as he knew that the domain name was wikipedia.com
If there wasn’t the domain name the client would have to memorize and use the IP Address each time he wanted to visit the URL. As it is quite difficult to use the IP Address we use DNS(Domain Name System) to route each domain name to the correct server when the client enters the domain name.
Every domain can be divided into three parts which are Subdomain, Domain name and Top-Level Domain.
If “en.wikipedia.org” is the domain, then “en” would be the subdomain.”Wikipedia” would be the domain name, and “.org” would be the Top-level domain.
4. What is Hosting?
Everyone likes to have a personal website to showcase their talents. Let's say you have built a website to showcase your talents, but it to be seen by all right?
How will you let others also view your website?
- What about hosting it, so that all will be able to see it with a click!
After building a website that may be either static or dynamic all the files related to it are stored on your personal computer.
But for others to view the website it has been stored in a place that is accessible to all the people over the internet(i.e. a server) and the process of moving website files or any other data to a place that is accessible to all is called hosting.
Many websites allow users to host websites on their servers for free.
Some websites which allow free hosting are as follows:
a). Static Website • GitHub • GitLab
b). Dynamic Website • Heroku • Vercel • Netlify • Firebase