How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Code

TL;DR: I am gave a brief lightning talk at April’s WordPress DC Meetup on the basics of HTML and PHP (“coding for dummies”). The goal: learn how to avoid breaking your website if you edit it. Below are the slides and recording.

I am gave a brief lightning talk at April’s WordPress DC Meetup on the basics of HTML and PHP (“coding for dummies”). The goal: learn how to avoid breaking your site if you edit it. Below are the slides.

The Cliff’s Notes are

  • The process

    • The server executes PHP and outputs HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.Screenshot of the presentation showing the relationship between server, browser, and user
    • The user’s browser takes that output and renders a visual representation of the page
  • Client-side Languages

    • HTML – Static (unchanging) content; provides structure
    • CSS – Provides style and form
    • JavaScript – Provides interactivity
  • PHP – Wrapped with “php” and “?>

    • Variable - Text, a number, true/false, or a group of variable; identified by “$
    • If Statement – performs an action if a statement is true
    • While Loop – performs an action while a statement is true
    • For / Foreach – combines elements of while and if
    • Functions – predefined set of actions; always followed by “( )
    • Don’t forget semicolons

Thanks to all who came out or tuned into the live stream. Comments? Questions? I’d love to hear your thoughts below or feel free to contact me.

Originally published April 12, 2011 | View revision history

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benbalter

Ben Balter is the Director of Engineering Operations and Culture at GitHub, the world’s largest software development platform. Previously, as Chief of Staff for Security, he managed the office of the Chief Security Officer, improving overall business effectiveness of the Security organization through portfolio management, strategy, planning, culture, and values. As a Staff Technical Program manager for Enterprise and Compliance, Ben managed GitHub’s on-premises and SaaS enterprise offerings, and as the Senior Product Manager overseeing the platform’s Trust and Safety efforts, Ben shipped more than 500 features in support of community management, privacy, compliance, content moderation, product security, platform health, and open source workflows to ensure the GitHub community and platform remained safe, secure, and welcoming for all software developers. Before joining GitHub’s Product team, Ben served as GitHub’s Government Evangelist, leading the efforts to encourage more than 2,000 government organizations across 75 countries to adopt open source philosophies for code, data, and policy development. More about the author →

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