The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The magic of computers is all in the code. The code behind whatever you are doing is a complex web of interactions that completely explains the bugs that appear in software. A game or an operating system like Windows can contain millions of lines of code, written line by line by teams of people. All of this stuff is run through a program called a compiler, which locks it down so we can't change it, hides it from our prying eyes, and makes it do whatever it is the code is supposed to do. In these millions of lines, there are usually countless mistakes that are made, things that don't get along with each other, and bugs that pop up for months afterwards. This is why software usually goes through a Beta period where it is released to the public, tested, re-tested, and driven to fail so that any troubles might be exposed before it is released to the general public and put on the market. This is what is happening right now to the new version of Windows, Vista, that has been pushed back for release about four times already. If you spend a fair amount of time online, having at least a general understanding of HTML is a good idea. While first conceived of in the late 1940s, the first versions of Hyper Text Mark-up Language were introduced in the early 1990s. This language allowed the Internet to be used by almost anyone. Web browsers could now display pages the way we see them today, as a combination of pictures, text, even videos and animations, and, most importantly, link them all together into a web. Every browser available allows you to see the code behind any page you are on. Clicking on a command in the menu of your browser usually called "Page Source" or something similar will allow you to see the code that a web page is constructed of. A series of tags and dividers, HTML is actually not very difficult to learn and by scanning through webpages that are interesting, you can learn a great deal about how the Internet is actually put together. You can see why that movie you are trying to load just won't work, how the webpage designer made that fancy background you are so impressed with, and a lot more. Hand in hand with HTML these days are XML, CSS and JavaScript. eXtensible Mark-up Language and Cascading Style Sheets are both built on top of HTML and allow a webpage author to have a much greater degree of control over the page they are designing. The same is true for JavaScript. One of the first interactive languages, Java allows all sorts of flashy things to happen on a webpage and allows a designer to build in ways to involve the user of a page. One of the best things about all of these languages is that there is absolutely no reason to buy any resources to learn how the use them. First of all, simply going through webpages as I described will teach you a lot, but if you are looking for something more formal and structured, there are places online that will teach you everything you need for free. The most trusted place on the web is w3schools.com. This site contains lessons and tests for all of the languages talked about in this article as well as many more. All of the material is free, and if you are willing to pay for them, you can even earn certificates in these languages. If you are looking for something more advanced and based in creating online multimedia files, gotoandlearn.com does the same job as w3schools. All courses are free with animated tutorials leading you through step by step. The code is what makes all of the pretty pages possible. It is worth spending some time with. ([email protected])
