Learn HTML
This is a great step-by-step guide to HTML by Estelle.
Link tags: learning,html
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12 Days of Web
All twelve are out, and all twelve are excellent deep dives into exciting web technologies landing in browsers now.
home sweet homepage
I can’t remember the last time that a website made me smile like this.
Start at the beginning: the importance of learning the basics - localghost
I’d recommend going in the order HTML, CSS, JS. That way, you can build something in HTML, add CSS to it as you learn it, and finally soup it up with your new-found JS knowledge.
Excellent advice for anyone new to web develoment.
Once you start getting into interactive website territory, with API calls and fancy stuff, that’s where you need JavaScript (JS) knowledge. More specifically, vanilla JS: plain JS with no additional frameworks or plugins. The JS that your browser understands without having to do any pre-processing. It makes working with frameworks a whole lot easier, and it’ll help you to know when not to use a framework (and avoid making users download massive JS bundles when all you need is a tiny bit of code).
Zonelets Home
Zonelets is a simple HTML blogging engine with scrappy, DIY spirit! I made it because I really want everyone to blog, but I felt that the existing options were generally overcomplicated and commercially-focused in a way that made web creativity feel intimidating and arcane.
I love the philosophy behind this blogging tool, which actively encourages you to learn a little bit of HTML:
Plenty of services can help you to “create a professional-looking website without writing a single line of code.” Now, thanks to Zonelets, you can create an UNPROFESSIONAL-looking website by writing NUMEROUS lines of code!
HTML Tutorial for Beginners 101 (Including HTML5 Tags) - WebsiteSetup
A really great one-page guide to HTML from Bruce. I like his performance-focused intro:
If your site is based on good HTML, it will load fast. Browsers incrementally render HTML—that is, they will display a partially downloaded web page to the user while the browser awaits the remaining files from the server.
Modern fashionable development techniques, such as React, require a lot of JavaScript to be sent to the user. When it’s all downloaded, the user’s device must parse and execute the JavaScript before it can even start to construct the page. On a slow network, or on a cheaper, low-powered device, this can result in an excruciatingly slow load and is a heavy drain on the battery.
How I’m teaching the kids coding for the web
I love how Remy explains front-end development to his kids:
The bones are the HTML. Each bone has a name, we call them tags (or elements).
…the skin and the paint on the skin, this is CSS.
Finally, the brain and behaviour, the way the website can be interacted with is using the third layer: JavaScript.
Inspiring high school students with HTML and CSS - Stephanie Stimac’s Blog
I love, love, love this encounter that Stephanie had with high school students when she showed them her own website (“Your website? You have a website?”).
I opened the DevTools on my site and there was an audible gasp from the class and excited murmuring.
“That’s your code?” A student asked. “Yes, that’s all my code!” “You wrote all of that?!” “Yes, it’s my website.”
And the class kind of exploded and starting talking amongst themselves. I was floored and my perspective readjusted.
When I code, it’s usually in HTML and CSS, and I suppose there’s a part of me that feels like that isn’t special because some tech bros decide to be vocal and loud about HTML and CSS not being special nearly everyday (it is special and tech bros can shut up.)
And the response from that class of high school students delighted me and grounded me in a way I haven’t experienced before. What I view as a simple code was absolute magic to them. And for all of us who code, I think we forget it is magic. Computational magic but still magic. HTML and CSS are magic.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
HTML is the Web ~ Pete Lambert
The lowest common denominator of the Web. The foundation. The rhythm section. The ladyfingers in the Web trifle. It’s the HTML. And it is becoming increasingly clear to me that there’s a whole swathe of Frontend Engineers who don’t know or understand the frontend-est of frontend technologies.
Front-end Developer Handbook 2019 - Learn the entire JavaScript, CSS and HTML development practice!
The 2019 edition of Cody Lindley’s book is a good jumping-off point with lots of links to handy resources.
How to become a “Designer who Codes” – Medium
This is such excellent advice for anyone starting out in front-end development:
- Get comfortable with the naked internet (sorry, not THAT naked internet)
- Build yourself some nice little one-column websites
- Learn about layout
- Make it work on phones
- Make it dynamic
(I would just love it if Meagan were posting this on her own incredibly beautiful website rather than on Ev’s blog.)
HTML, CSS and our vanishing industry entry points
This!
When we talk about HTML and CSS these discussions impact the entry point into this profession. Whether front or backend, many of us without a computer science background are here because of the ease of starting to write HTML and CSS. The magic of seeing our code do stuff on a real live webpage! We have already lost many of the entry points that we had. We don’t have the forums of parents teaching each other HTML and CSS, in order to make a family album. Those people now use Facebook, or perhaps run a blog on wordpress.com or SquareSpace with a standard template. We don’t have people customising their MySpace profile, or learning HTML via Neopets. We don’t have the people, usually women, entering the industry because they needed to learn HTML during that period when an organisation’s website was deemed part of the duties of the administrator.
I agree with every single word Rachel has written.
I care not a whit what tools or frameworks, or languages you use to build something on the web. But I really care deeply when particular tools, frameworks, or languages become mandatory for even getting a foot in the door.
This is for everyone.
I might be the “old guard” but if you think I’m incapable of learning React, or another framework, and am defending my way of working because of this, please get over yourself. However, 22 year old me would have looked at those things and run away. If we make it so that you have to understand programming to even start, then we take something open and enabling, and place it back in the hands of those who are already privileged. I have plenty of fight left in me to stand up against that.
CSS and Markup in Javascript is an Evolutionary Dead End
The bet to make is that we’re going to see more use of specialized languages. And HTML and CSS are the grandaddy specialized languages that have enough social consensus and capital investment to be the seeds of the next generation.
inessential: The View-Source Web
Lesson learned: the discoverable and understandable web is still do-able — it’s there waiting to be discovered. It just needs some commitment from the people who make websites.
Just Starting Out with CSS & HTML - CSS-Tricks
It’s great that we’ve got so many resources these days for keeping up with the latest and greatest developments in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript …but I think it’s really great that Chris maintains this collection of evergreen tutorials on the basics.
Food for thought (process)
I love, love, love Sam’s comparison’s between cooking and front-end development.
We should embrace the tools we have access to and appreciate our ability to learn, but also realize that maybe a gas stove or a certain design tools might not be for everyone. We have to find what works for our cooking or designing/coding style or the project/meal at hand.
Everything Easy is Hard Again – Frank Chimero
I wonder if I have twenty years of experience making websites, or if it is really five years of experience, repeated four times.
I saw Frank give this talk at Mirror Conf last year and it resonated with me so so much. I’ve been looking forward to him publishing the transcript ever since. If you’re anything like me, this will read as though it’s coming from directly inside your head.
In one way, it is easier to be inexperienced: you don’t have to learn what is no longer relevant. Experience, on the other hand, creates two distinct struggles: the first is to identify and unlearn what is no longer necessary (that’s work, too). The second is to remain open-minded, patient, and willing to engage with what’s new, even if it resembles a new take on something you decided against a long time ago.
I could just keep quoting the whole thing, because it’s all brilliant, but I’ll stop with one more bit about the increasing complexity of build processes and the decreasing availability of a simple view source:
Illegibility comes from complexity without clarity. I believe that the legibility of the source is one of the most important properties of the web. It’s the main thing that keeps the door open to independent, unmediated contributions to the network. If you can write markup, you don’t need Medium or Twitter or Instagram (though they’re nice to have). And the best way to help someone write markup is to make sure they can read markup.
Turning Design Mockups Into Code With Deep Learning - FloydHub Blog
Training a neural network to do front-end development.
I didn’t understand any of this.
‘Neopets’: Inside Look at Early 2000s Internet Girl Culture - Rolling Stone
Girls on Neopets took what they needed from the site and used the skills acquired there to further develop a burgeoning digital girls’ culture, whether it be in expanding their guild pages into personal sites, teaching others to code, or exchanging those skills for economic gain in Neopets.
I have anecdotal evidence from a few people that Neopets was their introduction to web design and development.
cassidoo/HTML-CSS-Tutorial: Tutorial for HTML and CSS
Here’s a great free curriculum for teaching HTML and CSS.