This coding class wants to make you curious about how software works. It wants to show you,
Wow, I can actually change this, fix this, make this.
It wants to make you confident that even if it seems difficult and complicated – you can learn it step by step. Be curious and persistent, that's all it takes.
What happens when you go to a website is that
- Your browser asks the internet for what it should show for let's say "google.com".
- A computer much like yours on the other side, responds with code that describes googles website.
- The browser sees and interprets that code, to show you the website.
When that's on your screen, it's essentially your copy of google.com. It has been downloaded so to say, in the form of code.
You said I have powers! Powers to have a copy of a website?
Well, yes, but what's even cooler is that you can change it, and see what your browser would show with your changes.
If you right click on the big google logo on google.com, you can find an option like "Inspect Element" (If you can't find it, try in Firefox, it definitely has it). If you click that, here's what you see:
If you click there and write transform: rotate(30deg);, you will see that the logo rotates!
This trickery works on almost any website. They are all just code, downloaded to your browser. Try to do something crazy, you can't break anything (that you can't fix by just reloading the website).
Here are a few more of such rules that give interesting results:
transform: scale(2.5);border: 2px solid green;opacity: 0.5
There's a ton more that you can do with code of course. If you know even just some code, it can help you solve a lot of different problems. Maybe you want to count how many times a word comes up in a long text, or find the row in a excel spreadsheet where one specific word is mentioned but another one is not.
Code is not just what makes your phone and computer, work, it's probably also in the car, washing machine and microwave you use. As every industry in the world is, or is becoming, digital in some form or shape, a lot of jobs are created for that can code on just about any level.
Code is often described as a world language in itself, and mastering it is a major skill that with some curiosity, you can add to, or make into your profession.