I have been working on HTML and CSS for the past couple of months. Now that I have a general understanding of the basics (although I have a long way to go yet) I am wondering why I get so confused with different tutorials and what is the best way to approach this. I have taken lots of tutorials that teach you html and css and lately I have been using the PSD to HTML style tutorials to build websites from scratch just using html and css. I have a beginners knowledge of Photoshop but do not want to focus on that until I have gotten a good grasp of HTML and CSS. It is mostly CSS I get caught up with, but sometimes I even find that I have done things the wrong way when coding the HTML. It looks OK in the final result - but then when I look at the code from the tutorial I can see there are much better ways to implement the code. I also find that there are many tools that are put into alot of these tutorials (like bootstrap) that lead me way down a path that is over my head as the CSS and HTML are now mixed in with bootstrap coding… so I have pretty much given up going that way for now. I was hoping one of you could give me some advice on how to best learn without becoming totally frustrated with the huge amount that I do not know. I sometimes feel like I am never going to get it… but I don’t want to give up. Hopefully this makes sense - appreciate any feedback you may have… Gayle
There will always be a huge amount that you don’t know – the more you know, the more aware you are of how much there is to know. Rank beginners tend to be cocky and think they know it all, but as you begin to learn more, your confidence decreases, because you realize how much there is that you don’t know. This is a normal part of the learning process, not an indication that you’re doing something wrong :).
There are many online tutorials. You can learn easily with the help of them. And you should practice on a daily basis. I had a same problem… practice makes a man perfect.
Except that GHgayle2014 seems to be saying that it’s the sheer number and diversity of online tutorials which they find confusing.
When I was learning, I learned from books, rather than online tutorials. Find a good book and work through it; it will teach one approach. When you’re comfortable with the material in that book, move on to something more advanced. If you want to learn a framework (I don’t use them), choose one and work with that until you’re comfortable with it - or until you decide it’s not for you. If you want, try another one. In other words, don’t try to learn everything at once, but build up your knowledge gradually.
One of the reasons I prefer books to online tutorials is that I tend to forget the details of stuff I seldom use. If I find myself thinking “oh, I remember reading about a technique which would work nicely here”, I can go back and find it more easily in a limited number of books, than if I have to try and find the tutorial again. That’s just the way I work, though; it might not suit everybody.
An alternative to books would be an online course, such as those offered by Learnable, our sister site. The advantage of that over assorted tutorials is that, again, you would find a logical and structured approach to one particular area.
Hope that helps.
Practice, practice and more practice!
Make mistakes, learn to fix them (you’ll learn a lot!).
Set yourself a project to learn with. Pick your favourite subject and build a site for that. Years back I started with a hand coded site that simply linked to sites I liked, it started with a couple of pages, then when the list of links grew I created new pages to categorise them. Over time I added some information pages, a photo gallery and so on, each time learning as I went.
I picked up a book and will continue looking at online courses… thanks for your advice!!
I am spending most of my day learning and appreciate your thoughts - I will certainly set up a site and build on it… much appreciated…
Thanks to everyone who responded to my post - everyone who posted back gave me something to think about… without this forum I am sure I would have thrown in the towel by now - what a great place to get help - thanks so much!!
It is easy to learn the basics of HTML and CSS but if you want be expert you need lots of hardwork, patience and practice. In starting everyone gets confused to learn the all things in few days which make us frustrated and confused so better is to start step by step and better to work on project. Try to create own simple site.