If you know me personally, you might already know that I’m into coding. I’m no expert at coding my any means; in fact, it’s been a while since I last coded anything in Python.
Over the long weekend, I was inspired to start learning something I’ve set aside for years, and that’s, as you may have guessed by the name of this post, how to program in html. More specifically, I wanted to learn to create my own website using html.
This came on a total whim because to say “I was inspired” completely overlooks what actually happened. It was more of a “oh my, I have wasted half my weekend doing nothing” and “maybe I should spend the next half doing something useful, while doing nothing” sort of gist. What was really amazing about learning html, was that once I delved into the online textbook, the first pdf I found after typing the simple google search: html textbook, I caught myself reading the it for several hours without noticing time pass by so quickly. I hadn’t felt so focused and excited to learn something since I started snowboarding 4 years ago.
My previous exposure to html specifically, entailed by Gr.8 self taking the course on Codecademy, only to completely abandon it out of boredom a couple days later. To anyone who is unfamiliar with Codecademy, it’s an online platform that provides free classes on a variety of coding languages. For me, using Codecademy made it difficult to remember all the terms and jargon that got thrown my way. I remember caring too much about completing the tasks outlined by the course, instead of actually slowing down to learn the content.
Since picking html up again, I’m actually quite happy I started off on Codecademy. The platform did a great of job of introducing the terms and making me somewhat familiar with the types of symbols html used. Currently, the textbook I’m using is the html & CSS Textbook by Jon Duckett. I love it because it’s intuitive and easy to follow along. What has helped me through this learning process has been taking notes, just like you would do with any other school textbook.
Over the long weekend, I managed to read through 100 pages. I’m sure if anyone had an entire day free of any work, it would be easy to get through more than half of the textbook because much of the information is based on common knowledge.
For anyone wanting to learn html, I would recommend first taking a look into Codecademy. I never managed to finish their html course but it was super useful for someone who didn’t understand a thing about html to get an initial idea. As for the textbook, I’m sure there are many other versions online. I chose it only because it was the first one I came across – convince to say the least. If you’re genuinely interested in learning html, read my personal tips included at the bottom!
For those who don’t have a clue about what coding is and would like to learn, I find it helpful to first begin by finding someone who has had many years of experience to teach and explain it to you. Generally, learning online as a complete novice is difficult since many sites use terminology that only makes sense after you’ve become comfortable with coding.
Good luck to everyone with your next spontaneous endeavors!
Extra tips ☺
1. The textbook I used recommends you to type your code in TextEdit for Mac and Notepad for Windows. I own a Mac and quickly found TextEdit to be quite tedious, especially since I needed to type so many repetitive symbols. I searched up ‘code editors’ and came across Brackets, an open source editor specialized to accommodate html, CSS and Javascript. If you have a Mac and some extra space on your drive, DOWNLOAD BRACKETS! It’ll save you so much time and spare you from so many typos.
2. Keep your open source editor on your desktop dock. That way, it’s much easier to access files since when html files are saved on your desktop, they tend to reopen as a web file. Or that’s just my amateur self!
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