I think the most interesting topic of the semester was Bootstrap. I think it was the most complex topic we covered and had the most functionality. I like Bootstrap because it the closest thing to a professional website that I have done in the wen development minor and the bootstrap website gives good directions on how to implement it. I also think Bootstrap is easy to get started with because the basic template to start is provided on the website. The Grid System is also a very user friendly tool. It allows you to have both a fixed and responsive grid and is built on a 12 column grid system. Also, Bootstrap has HTML elements such as typography, tables, buttons, forms, icons, code, and images. It also has JavaScript plugins you can use. Bootstrap also have features such as CSS and Components that can be used. CSS includes functionality like a global css settings, fundamental HTML and elements styled. Components describe reusable components built to provide iconography, input, groups, alerts, navigations and more.
In the assignments I used Bootstrap, I enjoyed the navigation bar, collapsible accordions and tabs. I think these particular functionalities in bootstrap look professional and work well for many different uses. I also like the Jumbotron. This is just a large scrolling slideshow you can display on your page to give it more appeal. I think it is very intuitive and easy to use. I think Bootsrap is a great tool and anyone with limited web development background can learn and use it.

Knowing web development, html, css, javascript, etc, is a great kill to have in an ever growing technological society. There are many situations in which understanding web development could be useful. One scenario in which knowing web development can be useful is on a personal level. With our society being to advance technologically and the internet being such a large part of everyone’s life, understanding web development can be useful. Specifically understanding responsive websites. Cell phones are more essential to people’s lives now than ever before. People get their news, email, calls, etc on their cell phone. Besides that, people use their cell phones to access the internet. Understanding responsive websites and being able to tell if a site is responsive or not can be important. A private scenario is for a company who is hiring a company to create a website for them. Having a general understanding of web development allows that company to know what is possible and what they can ask for on their website. Similarly, another example, following the previous, is after that website is built, being able to notice and understand when there is an issue can be dependent on some knowledge of web development.

I have enjoyed this course so far. We have covered topics such as basic html and css in the beginning of the course, principles of typography, box models, lists, menus, dropdown navigations, responsive pages and Bootstrap. The basic html and css portion of the course was just a review of material covered last semester. I thought this review was helpful and important since it had been some time since I worked with html and css. Typography is the practice of arranging type within a design. I did not enjoy this section as much as I did some of the others. I think It is a skill to know but I was less interested in it. One topic I did enjoy was creating navigations menus. There are different types of menus available for use, dropdown, and horizontal and vertical are some of these menus. I enjoy learning about menus because it is one of the most essential sections on a web page. It is the basis for how users navigate between pages. Lastly, Bootstrap was a big section this semester. Although it was difficult and time consuming, I think Bootstrap is a very interesting and useful skill to have. I think the majority of the code you need is either provided by the website or is explained on the website. I think Bootstrap is very professional and is very easy to understand. Overall, I believe this course so far has been set up in a good way and enough instruction is provided to be successful.

Though web development is intuitive and html and css are some of the more easy programming languages to learn, web developers still make some common mistakes. One common mistake I think web developers make is not specifying certain things such as styling in your code and accepting the default styling by the browser. It is easy to not specify styling like background color, font color and font size because it is easy to get used to a browser’s default styling. However, everyone does not use the same browser and have the same browser settings, so specifying these things just to be sure it important. I think another common issues web developers may not think of when developing websites, is color schemes and how they may affect users. Have seen some websites with color schemes that make it hard to see text and also just hard on the eyes in general. Also some users have different types of color blindness so I know that is something that I was instructed to be aware of on a previous project that included a website. The colors a developer uses can be very critical to a website. Lastly one common mistake developers make is not properly identifying sections within the html code. This a issue specifically for the developer but can be very important. Not labeling your header and sections, footers etc can make your code extremely more difficult to understand and edit.