

Ask HN: Some questions from an aspiring hacker about learning html - newsisan

After talking about startups, I got my brother very interested in the whole scene, and now one of the things that he wants to do is to learn html, to start off his programming experience.<p>I was wondering the best guide suitable for a beginner in programming who has never touched html, but ideally it would cover some elements of html5 and when they can be used. Currently, the main focus is on the coding aspect rather than the graphical aspect.<p>This would assist not only him, but hopefully others too who are looking for an introduction into the world of web programming, where quality of early resources and teaching often has a lasting impact.
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devmonk
Tell him to read everything here: <http://www.smashingmagazine.com/>

There are many great designers out there and unfortunately not many of them
working for companies with large websites, so just going out and seeing the
norm these days is not going to put him ahead of the curve.

He should get familiar with Photoshop, etc. You could try Gimp, but that might
scare him away. Photo/image editing is a critical piece to almost any web
design at a higher level.

He needs to understand CSS in and out and understand the ins and outs of when
to use certain elements. Yes we're not in 1999, and you shouldn't use tables
for layout unless you need a table (grid), but understand why, and understand
how you wish you were using tables sometimes because CSS can be a pain.

Check sites like this out:
<http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/perfect-3-column.htm> and get familiar
with the various kinds of layouts that can be used.

Understand lists, etc. Do a navigation bar with CSS hover effects, etc. Don't
get caught up with dropdown and fly-out menus.

Open up pages in Lynx. Think about accessibility (the deaf, the blind, the
partially blind that up their font sizes, etc.), but don't get tied down to
overly-accessible sites either. Know your audience.

Javascript. JQuery. Love it. Learn it.

Prototype. Understand it, get used to it being out there. YUI- same thing.

Flash. Yes, you should learn about it along with HTML 5.

Then also get into User Experience. Best practices, etc. Maybe try out a Ruby
on Rails app and get used to designing and working with forms.

Get familiar with the golden ratio.

Park a domain for him and have him write a site to market his skills. Even if
he is younger, it wouldn't hurt.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Wow - the guy asks one of the most popular questions in the internet's history
("how to learn HTML") and you lay out a two year plan to make him a master of
the internet. You even went so far as to suggest that you buy a domain so the
guy can have a business down the road. Wow - just wow...

In my business as a software trainer, I see this periodically - you get a
brilliant mind/programmer/developer in the classroom to teach a class. After
the course is over, the students are clueless. "He went so fast." or "I was
lost after the first hour!"

OP - I can't say that I fault devmonk's post provided that you actually
misspoke: if you were truly looking for a two year plan so that your brother
could be master of the internet with his own small business, then by all means
devmonk has set you straight. If you did not misspeak - you actually want
resources to help your brother to just learn HTML, it's better to ignore
devmonk's post and just go to Amazon, find a book about HTML that has (a) a
good history, (b) is up-to-date, and (c) has a lot of positive reviews. Hell,
even a "For Dummies" or a "learn HTML in 24 hours" book would be fine at this
stage.

Whatever you do, don't scare your brother with a list of all that stuff.

------
jwdunne
<http://www.w3schools.com> always helped me and I still continue to use it as
a reference.

~~~
newsisan
Thanks very much for that, appreciate it.

 _Three_ questions.

1\. Any thoughts on www.htmldog.com? Came up in some searches, seems to have
not been updated in a while though. edit: or
[http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/html-css-beginners-
gui...](http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/html-css-beginners-guide)

2\. Thoughts on whether to use the html tutorial, or the html5 tutorial?

3\. Thoughts on the w3schools vs www.diveintohtml5.org (is the latter suitable
for someone without prior html knowledge)?

~~~
jwdunne
Sorry for the late reply. It looks like the latter is for people with HTML4
experience but I don't know. However, I'm not entirely sure. I'll keep reading
and see what it's like.

