Inspect Everything

Connecting the dots

In chapter 1, we learned about the basics of the Web.

In 2, we got acquainted with the inspector and saw how everything is just text.

If the web is just text, then editing a webpage should just be as easy as editing someone else’s Word or Excel document, right? Indeed, it is.

We saw that we could create HTML, including new elements, including drawing where new files are located. That being the case, all those other media files come from somewhere, and we used the Network panel to understand it.

In the next chapter, we looked more closely at the individual files. Files don’t just arrive, there’s a protocol for exchanging files, and the inspector makes us privvy to those. We also saw how the browser is just a facade. It constructs all the pieces of a webpage in an attractive accessible way (mileage may vary by the web designer) but sometimes, you want to go straight to the source.

Finally, we understood that if all this information is being exchanged for file requests, then the sender of files must learn something about the requester. With the inspector, we can guess at their intentions

Practical concerns

Finding data files

Web scraping

Introduction to web development

Beyond the Web

The Web recently turned 20 years old. At the time of this guide’s writing, iPhone apps were still trying to kill the Web, and Google Glass offers an interface that will be nothing like the mouse and keyboard you used

Despite that, I think many of the big-picture concepts in this lesson will carry on TK

Data is just text

We saw how the web is just text. In another way, you could see

If ou want to get into semantics, the webpages themselves are data.

Look past the facade

Watching the watchers