Web Deep Dive

Join Kent C. Dodds for "Web Deep Dive"

Not currently scheduled

The problem statement

The web is the doorway to the world

Understanding it at a deep level is critical to building on it

There are over five billion people connected to the internet. Whether you're building an online presence for your business, a personal blog, an ecommerce site, or anything in between, having a solid understanding of the fundamentals of the web is critical to creating the kind of user experience software developers expect.

Most people getting into web development in recent years naturally breeze through (or plain skip over) web fundamentals in their pursuit of their first dev job. Unfortunately, this results in the substandard reinvention of wheels which means lots of work for sub-optimal results. Frustrated devs. Frustrated customers. In this workshop we're diving deep into important bits of the web platform you need to be successful building web applications.

At the end of this workshop you'll be able to do all of these things yourself.

Here's why you should register for the workshop.

01.Understand HTTP
Your web app starts with the HTTP request/response cycle. We'll look at this in depth from both the browser and server perspective. In particular through the lense of the Web Fetch standard.
02.Implement efficient caching
Not just assets, but any resource accessed via HTTP can be cached via proper use of Cache-Control header directives. We'll learn how to take advantage of these directives for in-browser caching as well as shared caching on a CDN.
03.Speed up your site with prefetching
Eliminate pending states by taking advantage of the platform's <link> tag for preloading and prefetching resources and even preconnecting to other domains to easily speed up your app.
04.Explain how links and forms work
If you joined the web dev industry in recent years, you were probably taught that your onSubmit handler for a form should start with the line event.preventDefault(). We're going to get you to the point that you understand what the browser actually does if you don't prevent this behavior. You'll also understand important browser behavior regarding links and what happens when the user changes their mind.
05.Use Semantic HTML
HTML is a relatively simple markup language that includes a great deal of built-in capabilities. Just like any tool, it works best when you hold it right, and using semantic HTML is how you ensure the browser can do it's job with your app. We'll also briefly talk about the role of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) has in this.

The topics we will be covering.

This is what we will talk about.

01.
HTTP

02.
Web Fetch

03.
Semantic HTML

04.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

05.
Resource Prefetching

06.
HTTP Caching

07.
Forms

Required experience

This is not an introduction to programming course. You should have some experience with coding. You will be expected to have and be comfortable with a coding editor. You will need to have modern versions of git, npm, and Node.js installed on your computer. It will be guided and appropriate for beginners looking to get a better understanding of the web platform as well as experienced developers who want to level-up with a deep dive of the web platform.

Important Note

Depending on the questions asked during the workshop, or necessary changes in the material, the actual content of the workshop could differ from the above mentioned topics.

What to expect from a Kent C. Dodds workshop

My primary goal is retention. If you can't remember what I've taught you, then the whole experience was a waste of our time.

With that in mind, we'll follow the teaching strategy I've developed over years of teaching (learn more about my teaching strategy here).

The short version is, you'll spend the majority of time working through exercises that are specifically crafted to help you experiment with topics you may have never experienced before. I intentionally put you into the deep end and let you struggle a bit to prepare your brain for the instruction.

Based on both my personal experience and scientific research around how people learn, this is an incredibly efficient way to ensure you understand and remember what you're learning. This is just one of the strategies I employ to improve your retention. I think you'll love it!

I'm excited to be your guide as we learn together!

Don't just take my word for it.

What others have to say

It was 🤯. A lot of fun, and I learned so much in one day. My understanding of how the web actually works is now more and I got excited about Remix too. Pumped to put it all into practice. 13/10.

Gwen Shapira

Co-founder @ Nile

I'm still in the first steps of EpicWeb but the platform alone says how much care and thought gone into it. When Kent says "it's not meant for passive consumption," he means it and delivers an awesome active learning experience. I've gone through multiple courses, but this one clearly raises the bar (and probably ruins others ones for me 😆). It kinda feels like coming back to a classroom with a teacher and exercises to be done in the best way possible.

Bruno Noriller

Programmer

I've had the pleasure to attend Kent's - Advanced React Hooks, back in 2020 and it was such a insightful course. Kent has a knack of breaking complex subjects which are easier for every developer to understand.

His workshops are worth the investment Even topics like - Concurrency, memo, callbacks & effects, which would otherwise be daunting to completely comprehend, are simplified. Highly recommend his workshops and his website - epicreact.dev