

Ask HN: Are there any resources for learning html+css that are actually good? - newsisan

Definitely inspired by: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2002668<p>"I've yet to find any good, modern, sources of learning HTML and CSS. "<p>And then about w3schools which I had the impression was good: "w3schools is the single worst 'developer' site on the entire web."
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mtinkerhess
I taught myself CSS by going through each design on CSS Zen Garden, looking at
the source code and poking around with Firebug until I understood why each
design worked the way it did.

<http://www.csszengarden.com/>

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bearwithclaws
CSS Mastery by Andy Bubb. The best, and only one book/resource you need to
become really good with CSS.

For HTML, spend an hour or two with HTMLDOG.com will do the job.

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drtse4
I also liked Bulletproof Web Design for all the real world examples, not sure
that the techniques shown there are up-to-date though.

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Jem
<http://htmldog.com/>

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petervandijck
Had a look, that's a great one for beginners.

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meadhikari
And then about w3schools which I had the impression was good: "w3schools is
the single worst 'developer' site on the entire web."

What made you think that?

I learned html and php through w3school and it was a wonderfull experience.

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hackinthebochs
It's terrible because it teaches everything in isolation. You have a section
for this tag, a section for this function, on and on. You never get a feel for
how all the pieces fit together to build something non-trivial. It's only
useful as a reference. And even for that purpose its terrible because the
information density is way too low.

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malandrew
It's good for a basic reference when you don't want to wade through the W3C
spec. It's not good for learning.

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malandrew
Dive in HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim

Designing w/ Web Standards, 3rd Edition by Jeff Zeldman - Please note that
this book is more about orientation and how to go about learning HTML/CSS than
actually coding. Only the last chapter contains a real coding exercise. Either
way, it's worth a read.

Most of the best resources on HTML/CSS are the blogs and sites maintained by
the main contributors to the standards. Whenever a section of the W3C spec is
vague or confusing, go check out the blocks of people like Bruce Lawson, Eric
Meyer and Zeldman to help clear up the ambiguities.

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isleyaardvark
The Opera Web Standards Curriculum:
[http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/1-introduction-to-the-
web...](http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/1-introduction-to-the-web-
standards-cur/)

I didn't find it until well after I learned HTML & CSS, and I wish I had seen
it then. It covers web standards from the bottom up, and would give you a
really great foundation to start from.

~~~
malandrew
Mozilla's stuff and the Webkit blog are also quite good.

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pdelgallego
A think the last post about CSS Positioning in A List Apart was very good.

<http://www.alistapart.com/articles/css-positioning-101/>

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drongo
Check Sitepoint reference (CSS, HTML, Javascript) - no bad one
<http://reference.sitepoint.com/>

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rubinelli
They also have some good PDF/paperback books.

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petervandijck
<http://www.webmonkey.com/tutorials/> is a classic and still online. Well
written.

I'm not sure if their older tutorials are still online. Check out this example
to show to absolute beginners:
<http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/make_an_html_document/>

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mch929
A List Apart and Webmonkey were how I taught myself. I referenced w3schools a
few times as well.

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csomar
For CSS I would suggest that you get a look at Stylizer
(<http://www.skybound.ca/>).

That won't teach you CSS, but will certainly be more productive than anything
you'll read/work with.

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AlexMuir
What would an ideal online course look like? I've been thinking about building
a wiki-style engine for tutorials etc. I'd like to apply some of the elements
from Stack Overflow (badges, rep-based priviledges etc)

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kulpreet
If you'd rather watch video tutorials than read something, I'd highly
recxomwnd the Lynda.com series 'CSS for Designers' — Although it's a bit
dated, it teaches you a lot about web standards and semantics.

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ssn
Harvard's course on "Building Dynamic Websites"

<http://academicearth.org/courses/building-dynamic-websites>

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zoomzoom
Right click, "view source", use webkit inspector/firebug/etc...

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tyrmored
I can see this is sort of tongue-in-cheek, but I really have to agree. I find
there's just no better way to do it.

That said, for slightly esoteric techniques like Suckerfish menus,
<http://htmldog.com/> helps a lot.

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withoutfriction
To address this, check out this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2024011>

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glen
<http://nixty.com/course/Web-Design-Essentials-XHTML-CSS>

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yanw
<http://code.google.com/edu/ajax/index.html>

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mansr
Nothing beats reading the specs.

