Starting out

I had a really enjoyable time at Codebar Brighton last week, not least because Morty came along.

I particularly enjoy teaching people who have zero previous experience of making a web page. There’s something about explaining HTML and CSS from first principles that appeals to me. I especially love it when people ask lots of questions. “What does this element do?”, “Why do some elements have closing tags and others don’t?”, “Why is it textarea and not input type="textarea"?” The answer usually involves me going down a rabbit-hole of web archeology, so I’m in my happy place.

But there’s only so much time at Codebar each week, so it’s nice to be able to point people to other resources that they can peruse at their leisure. It turns out that’s it’s actually kind of tricky to find resources at that level. There are lots of great articles and tutorials out there for professional web developers—Smashing Magazine, A List Apart, CSS Tricks, etc.—but no so much for complete beginners.

Here are some of the resources I’ve found:

• MarkSheet by Jeremy Thomas is a free HTML and CSS tutorial. It starts with an explanation of the internet, then the World Wide Web, and then web browsers, before diving into HTML syntax. Jeremy is the same guy who recently made CSS Reference.
• Learn to Code HTML & CSS by Shay Howe is another free online book. You can buy a paper copy too. It’s filled with good, clear explanations.
• Zero to Hero Coding by Vera Deák is an ongoing series. She’s starting out on her career as a front-end developer, so her perspective is particularly valuable.

If I find any more handy resources, I’ll link to them and tag them with “learning”.

Why we teach our students progressive enhancement | Blog Cyd Stumpel

Progressive enhancement is about building something robust, that works everywhere, and then making it better where possible.

Learn HTML

This is a great step-by-step guide to HTML by Estelle.

Learn CSS

This is a great (free!) course on learning CSS from the basics up. Nicely-pitched explanations with plenty of examples.

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!