Computer Science: Web Development Basics

What is the primary purpose of semantic HTML tags like <main>, <article>, and <section>?

Semantic tags provide structural meaning to a web page, helping search engines (SEO) and assistive technologies (screen readers) understand the content's role rather than just its appearance.

In the CSS Box Model, how does 'box-sizing: border-box' change the calculation of an element's total width?

With border-box, the defined width includes the content, padding, and border. This prevents the element from growing larger than its specified width when padding or borders are added.

What is the difference between the '==' and '===' operators in JavaScript?

'==' performs type coercion, attempting to convert operands to the same type before comparison, while '===' (strict equality) compares both the value and the data type without conversion.

Explain the concept of 'Event Bubbling' in the Document Object Model (DOM).

Event bubbling is a type of event propagation where an event first triggers on the innermost target element and then successively triggers on its ancestors (parents) in the DOM tree.

How do CSS Media Queries support responsive web design?

Media queries use the @media rule to apply different blocks of CSS code based on device characteristics such as screen width, resolution, or orientation.

What is the role of the 'async' and 'await' keywords in JavaScript?

They provide a cleaner syntax for working with Promises, allowing asynchronous code to be written and read like synchronous code, using try/catch for error handling.

In a RESTful API, which HTTP method is typically used to update an existing resource partially?

The PATCH method is used for partial updates, whereas PUT is typically used to replace an entire resource.

What does a 403 Forbidden HTTP status code indicate compared to a 401 Unauthorized code?

401 means the user is not authenticated (identity unknown), while 403 means the user is authenticated but does not have the necessary permissions to access the resource.

Describe the difference between Client-Side Rendering (CSR) and Server-Side Rendering (SSR).

In SSR, the server generates the full HTML for a page and sends it to the client. In CSR, the server sends a minimal HTML wrapper and the browser uses JavaScript to render the content dynamically.

What is the purpose of the 'fetch()' API in modern JavaScript?

The fetch() API provides an interface for making asynchronous HTTP requests to servers and returns a Promise that resolves to the Response object.