

Ask HN: What are the best resources to learn basic HTML/CSS for a total newbie? - lsanza

A colleague (who isn't technical at all) is trying to understand better how what we do on the technical side works and has asked me for some references.<p>I've found several but I'm not sure if they're appropriate for someone with pretty basic or no knowledge of anything that is CS related. Is there any resource that has helped some of you in the past?
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charliepark
I really liked the Webmonkey lessons, but that was a very long time ago, and I
have no idea if the lessons they had are at all useful these days.

I've heard the Head First books are good for people who are pretty new to web
development, but I have to say that their iPhone development book didn't work
for me at all.

Ultimately, the best thing is to save a webpage that someone else made, and to
then start tweaking it, and to compare the differences between the old and new
versions (use multiple tabs). Then, begin to plan what changes you'd like to
see, and see if you can change the page appropriately.

In Chrome or Firefox, the "inspect element" tool is really really useful.

Good luck to your colleague.

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mlwarren
I found this book by Duckett to be very helpful. It provides a good visual
overview of the stuff you're learning. [http://www.amazon.com/HTML-CSS-Design-
Build-Websites/dp/1118...](http://www.amazon.com/HTML-CSS-Design-Build-
Websites/dp/1118008189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368456903&sr=8-1&keywords=html+and+css)

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meerita
I would recommend you codeacademy too for HTML/CSS. It is a pretty quick and
easy markup language and presentational language. Both easy to learn if you
really focus the learning on the code and what it does instead of the cool
result you gonna get.

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willcate
This page on the codeacademy site:

<http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/web>

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flignats
<http://www.codecademy.com> is a great start for someone completely new.

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mcrittenden
<http://learncss.tutsplus.com/>

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lsanza
Thanks for all the answers! I got a couple of friends to mention codeacademy
as well...

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anishkothari
I recommend Head First HTML/CSS. It's what I used - great book!

