

Ask HN: Any decent html tutorials? - newsisan

Hopefully, this won't take more than 45 seconds of your time :)<p>Just wondering firstly whether to start out with html4 or html5. This is for a first programming language (if you could even call it that).<p>Regarding tutorials, any suggestions? Just looking for the guide that can start someone off with a knowledgebase, and google/irc/cheatsheets/etc will be used from there.<p>html4. www.htmldog.com, w3schools, or http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/html-css-beginners-guide<p>html5: W3Schools or www.diveintohtml5.org<p>What have your experiences been with learning html or using any of these tutorials/resources?
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michael_dorfman
I've always pointed people to w3schools.

I'd start by learning HTML4, and then you can learn the new features in HTML5
once you are comfortable with the core.

I'd also suggest that you build a buttload of webpages. Reading the tutorials
isn't going to help much, if you don't get hands-on.

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po
> This is for a first programming language (if you could even call it that).

You really shouldn't... it's a markup language. Not that that's a bad thing.

If you are really new to it and are looking to learn and maybe make something
fun to play with, I suggest you start with HTML5. The web is going that way
and the browsers are a bit more sane with it so far. There is plenty to learn.
Eventually you will get into databases, and server-side concerns and you will
probably dip your toes into Javascript (a programming language).

If you want to build something to share with others, HTML 4 is probably more
practical. HTML5 is mostly backwards compatible, but you really need to
understand what will work for everyone and what won't.

Hope that helps.

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pbhjpbhj
You mean which of the markup standards to learn?

I'd say it depends on your goal. If you're currently designing and want to
support older browsers then I'd stick with HTML4 standards. If you're not
bothered about older browser support or learning for the sake of it (or for a
personal site) or for a future job then I'd go with 5.

I've been doing web design / dev since about 1996 (on-and-off part-time) and
just started doing sites in HTML5 about a month ago. Prior to that I tended to
use XHTML-1 transitional doctypes.

