Coding gives you the power to create. It is what lies behind our digital marketing design. Understanding the vast possibilities of coding gives you the ability to see through the eyes of the technical guy and the marketing guy. You no longer have to bridge the gap of knowledge because you now understand. If you can speak with your coders in the same language that they use (HTML) communication is smoother, creativity is heightened, and both of you are now on the same page. You have the power to create, edit and help construct your ideas. A coder creates a vision that you envision. There is often something missing when someone else is creating your vision. If you understand their language they will most likely respect you more and try and understand your language.
HubSpot seems to agree with me when I say that coding is a great skill for the modern marketer to keep in their toolbox. Just because it might not be on your list of duties it is very beneficial to have an understanding of it. HubSpot brings up a great point about learning to code. If you learn how to code you can understand the limitations and possibilities of code. This will make it easier for you to find the right coder to help you complete the job because you will know the skills needed for the task. You will no longer have to rely on other’s knowledge to see your campaign reach the screen.
<h5> Codecademy </h5>
As someone that knew near to nothing about coding, I have to say that Codecademy was a great way to learn some of the basics. The online academy is easy to navigate and makes learning the code not so bad- actually quite interesting. The free interactive course covers the basics of HTML and CSS (did I mention it’s free?!). I recommend this course if you are looking to start learning code somewhere, its a great place for beginners to grasp the basic concepts.
<h5> Html & CSS </h5>
HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) coding is used for creating content and webpage structure. CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) is used for webpage presentation and design. The two combined create the sites that you browse everyday. In the header above is an example of how you could enter a header using HTML coding.
HTML is used to define the structure and basics of the website. HTML defines:
- Titles, headings, lists, text, images, etc.
- Hyperlinks
- Position and size of site logo, menus, sidebar, and content
- Video clips, sound clips, spreadsheets and other graphics/applications
- Forms for conversions
In the late 90’s people were starting to see a problem with coding solely with HTML. It was timely and coders would have to repeat code tags over and over again just to make sure the site had the same font throughout. Coders discovered that they could ease the site creation process by creating a CSS file that held the basic design elements that you wanted to implement to your site, like layout, fonts, and colors. The file would be used as a tool for your site to reference for the basic presentation elements of your site. If you decide to change an element of design you simply edit the one file and the design will be changed throughout your entire site. Without CSS there would be more errors, much longer code, the editing process would be extremely tedious and cohesion across a site would be much more difficult to accomplish. CSS focuses on the style and theme of the site while HTML focuses on the content and details.
<h5> Whats Next </h5>
Times are changing fast. What’s next for coding?
According to Moore’s Law the number of transistors that can be squeezed onto a semiconductor chip of a given size doubles roughly every two years . This means that computers are constantly getting better and faster, very quickly! This has held true since the 1960’s. But what does this actually mean? What forms of computing are on the horizon?
In the 1950’s-60’s scientists Boris Belousov and Anatoly Zhabotinsky discovered a class of chemical reactions, known as “BZ reactions.” These chemical reactions oscillate (fluctuate) over time. This led to the paradigm of chemical computing. Andrew Adamatzky at the University of the West of England, in Bristol, built on Belousov and Zhabotinsky’s work. In collaboration with his colleagues, he developed a way to excite BZ reactions with silver halide ions and control the propagation of chemical waves with light. From this the scientists were able to carry out basic chemical computations by making separate wave fonts interact with one another. Woah. I know that this is a lot to understand (trust me I had to look a few things up myself) but the science is intriguing. If you think about it the parallel between computing and chemical reactions is obvious. An input goes through a transformation and then becomes an output. Although this discovery is quite big, the computing is still very slow. But if Moore’s law stands true, then maybe the process of chemical computing will become faster as scientists push to accelerate the process.
Another interesting type of computing is wetware computing. Wetware computing is based off of the principles of nature. A cell is a representation of the computer and DNA provides information storage. RNA represents input, ribosomes do processing, and proteins form the output. Again the parallels are obvious, there is an input, transformation and then an output. In this model the details even provide similarities. It is interesting that we didn’t base computing off of this model from the get-go since nature has been using this model for billions of years. The model has a great potential but for now the cells are often too hard to program. In 1999 biomedical engineer William Ditto, along with his colleagues used the neuron’s of a leech to create a simple cell computing system. He eventually stepped away from computing with cells but learned valuable insights from his research that he now uses in his own business. He found that cell computing was very sensitive and chaotic which at first looked like a negative. When he dived a bit deeper he realized that this could be used to his advantage. He spun off this discovery into a high-security chip company called ChaoLogix.
The future of computing is still unknown. But the possibilities are getting weird.
Jaclyn Celine 