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Course & Subject Guides

Web Development for Scholarly Projects and Portfolios @ Pitt

A guide for getting started with web development projects, including listings of tools for creating websites, recommendations for hosting services, and helpful resources.

Hard-coding Tools

Hard-coding a website involves multiple steps, technologies, and tools. This page describe some of the most common ones below.

Web Development Languages

Websites are made up of source code files written in a variety of web development languages. The most common are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (in that order), but other languages may also be used, depending on the type of website, its purpose, and the preferences of the website owner and/or developer.

Front-end

Front-end web development is the process of creating the graphical user interface (GUI) of a website—i.e., the elements that users can see and interact with, such as the text on the page, drop-down menus, media, and forms.

  • HTML (HyperText Markup Language): HTML is the most basic building block of the web, so it's essential to web development. HTML is a markup language defines the structure and meaning of web content, consisting of a series of elements (e.g., text, headings, tables, lists, images, and links) that tell the browser how to display the content. 
  • CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): CSS is a style sheet language used alongside HTML to define the design or style of a website, including the layout, visual effects, fonts, and colors.  
  • JavaScript: JavaScript a programming language that is often used to add interactivity to web pages. It can be used to create a variety of effects, such as animations, pop-ups, and form validation. Because it is a client-side language, it is executed on the user's computer, not on the server. 

Back-end

Back-end web development focuses on the server-side software, which the user does not see, including databases, servers, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Back-end code allows these parts to communicate with the front-end and can be written in a variety of programming languages.

Because there are so many commonly-used back-end web development languages, this guide won't list them. Instead, here are some resources you can check out to learn more about these languages:

Text Editors

Text editors make it easier to write and manage the code for your web site, including features like auto-completion, code formatting, code folding, syntax highlighting, and multiple cursors. Here are some beginner-friendly options:

FTP Clients

A File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client is a software application that enables you to connect your computer (i.e., the localhost) to a remote server (i.e., the host for your web content), which allows you to upload, download, and manage files.