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Tutorial 01 - How the Web Works
Why this matters
You are learning to build websites, not become a networking engineer. You only need a useful mental model for what happens when someone opens a website.
The most important idea is:
A browser sends a request. A server receives it and sends back a response.
1. The basic flow
When someone visits:
text
https://example.com/about/
a simplified flow is:
text
Browser
↓ request
Internet
↓
Web server / application
↓
Response
↓
Browser
The browser asks for a resource. The server processes the request and sends something back.
The template can display current application data.
text
Database
↓
Django
↓
Template
↓
HTML
↓
Browser
8. What you do not need yet
You do not need to memorize DNS, TCP/IP, HTTP headers, TLS, browser rendering engines, or reverse proxies.
When you encounter these later, learn what role they play.
9. Exercise
Open a Phase 4 Django project and choose one URL.
Find:
its URL pattern
its view
its template
any data passed to the template
the HTML shown by the browser
Write:
text
URL
↓
URL pattern
↓
View
↓
Template
↓
Browser
10. Using ChatGPT
Ask:
I understand Python but am new to web development. Trace what happens when a user visits /bookings/ in this Django project. Explain the URL, view, model/database if relevant, template, and browser. Do not rewrite my code.