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Day2/180 of FrontendDev-What is HTML and Setting Up Your Development Environment

What is HTML and Setting Up Your Development Environment

Welcome to Day 2 of the 180 Days of Frontend Development Challenge. Today, we’ll introduce you to HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the foundation of every website, and guide you through setting up a simple yet efficient development environment.

What is HTML?

HTML is the standard markup language used to create the structure of web pages. It consists of a series of elements (or tags) that define different parts of a webpage, such as headings, paragraphs, links, images, and forms.

  • HTML Elements are written with opening (<tag>) and closing (</tag>) tags, with content in between.
  • Attributes provide additional information about elements (e.g., href in <a href="..."> defines a link destination).

Example of a basic HTML structure:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>My First Webpage</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
    <p>This is my first HTML page.</p>
</body>
</html>
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Why is HTML Important?

  • It defines the skeleton of a webpage.
  • Without HTML, browsers wouldn’t know how to display content.
  • It works alongside CSS (for styling) and JavaScript (for interactivity).

Setting Up Your Development Environment

Before writing HTML, you need the right tools. Here’s what you’ll need:

  1. Text Editor (Where you write code)

    • VS Code (Recommended) – Free, lightweight, and packed with extensions.
    • Alternatives: Sublime Text, Atom, or Notepad++ (for beginners).
  2. Web Browser (To view your webpage)

    • Google Chrome or Firefox – Best for developer tools (Inspector, Console).
  3. File Organization

    • Create a dedicated folder for your projects (e.g., Frontend-180-Days).
    • Inside, make a subfolder for each day (e.g., Day-2-HTML).
  4. Your First HTML File

    • Open VS Code, create a new file, and save it as index.html.
    • Type the basic HTML structure above and save.
    • Open the file in Chrome by double-clicking it or dragging it into the browser.

Viewing Your Work

  • After saving changes in VS Code, refresh your browser to see updates.
  • Use Chrome DevTools (Right-click → Inspect) to debug and experiment.

Practice Exercise

  1. Create an index.html file.
  2. Add a heading (<h1>), a paragraph (<p>), and a link (<a href="...">).
  3. Open it in your browser and verify it works.

Additional Resources

For a structured learning path, check out the "Get to Learn Frontend Development in 180 Days" ebook:

📖 Download Here

What’s Next?

Tomorrow, we’ll dive deeper into HTML Elements and Attributes, exploring more tags and their uses.

Keep experimenting, and see you on Day 3!

(Tip: Consistency beats intensity—spend at least 30 minutes practicing today.)

Top comments (3)

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3triplec profile image
3Triple-c

aight

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john_samuel_193e3f93499fa profile image
John Samuel

Thanks on to the next
Day 3 let's goo🚀🚀

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dp7954 profile image
Dp

Nice

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