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Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

learn.shayhowe.com

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Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#61

Post by Pollexter »

jergason wrote: post #10

I really wish they didn't link the w3schools at the bottom under resources. They are a spammy, and often incorrect, resource for learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. MDN has better docs, no ads, and no trying to sell you dubious "certifications."

I agree with you completely! I personally really like this site, but I found myself wondering if the inclusion of w3schools in the references indicates that they are a sponsor/advertiser.

I would much rather see those seeking to learn more going to the real W3C wiki-based learn page (http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML). I see from this discussion how passionate people can be about presentation and learning styles. Once you get beyond the learning phase I recommend sites like SitePoint (http://reference.sitepoint.com/html) and Mozilla's Developer Docs (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs). I use these sites all the time.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#62

Post by probitymike »

wyclif wrote: post #47
chubs wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks fantastic, all i can say is: bigger fonts please, and don't give up finishing it! The world needs something better than w3schools, but simpler than MDN. You could be that.

I agree. The design sense is going in the right direction; it needs simpler descriptions and clearer writing so that people who really don't have any experience can understand the tutorial. As was mentioned above, n00bs probably won't know what an "object" is.

This isn't a standalone resource yet. Shay uses this in class to explain all the key concepts in further detail. After each class, the students can back go back and reference these concepts.

However, everything can be better, so we will make sure to make the language and the flow can work for anyone.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#63

Post by probitymike »

chefsurfing wrote: post #5

Great! However the pacing still feels dense. I think beginners reading this could use two things: 1. more frequent sectioning and 2. more examples. Bonus round would be giving the students a way to actively demonstrate their newly gained knowledge inline with the tutorial. Anyway, I think what you've got is fantastic.

"Bonus round would be giving the students a way to actively demonstrate their newly gained knowledge inline with the tutorial."

Nailed it. The site is is the foundation of Shay's weekly lecture, and in class, we have students do exercises where they incorporate what they just learned. We also have students demo what they built to the class.

The pacing is still a work in progress, we do our best to make sure that we aren't flying over the students heads too much, but we know we can do better.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#64

Post by sequoia »

yogsototh wrote: post #55
sequoia wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the position of my comment in the thread, it is not clear that everyone shares your view of it being merely thread pollution. I wasn't really mad, that comment was a play on this joke, which is fairly well known on the net: http://1389blog.com/pix/im-so-angry-i-made-a-sign.jpg So what should I do, be mr serious and drone on like a broken record about accessibility? Is it so bad that I try to address the po…

It seems you are right. The low color contrast on a small disabled part of this website seems to be the major shared point of view. Sincerely, it wasn't a personal attack. I am just sad a short comment about the look & feel make the top instead of a comment about the content. Even if in the end, I tend to agree with you that this color contrast is a design error. ps: Also, if you visit my website, you will see I am f…

Agreed: my comment should not be the top comment; it's just one small critique. I just see this so frequently (low low contrast, hard to read text) as well as other accessibility issues on sites linked from hn that I started griping about it. FWIW I don't just gripe about it, sometimes I actually do something: https://github.com/addyosmani/todomvc/pull/37 :)

In the end I think it's important to remember that even if the content is the best thing in the world, that doesn't mean much if people can't read it. I'm probably just a curmudgeon but I've clicked links to posts where I saw the contrast and size and said "I'm not going to bother reading this. It is too hard and I don't care enough about this article to change my browser settings to correct the designer's mistakes." And many people don't have the skills to do so. Three cheers for agreement! :)

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#65

Post by probitymike »

kyberias wrote: post #40

What is the intended audience exactly? The language is tense ever for myself with 20 years of coding experience: "To put this into laymen terms, HTML determines the semantic structure of content on a web page..." How is 'semantic structure' a layman term?

The intended audience is for Code Academy students here in Chicago learning web development and user experience design. Shay uses this as a resource to guide the students through their learning.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#66

Post by probitymike »

ceol wrote: post #6
ypodim wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be more "beginner" than that?

"As on [sic] overview, HTML is a hyper text markup language created to give content structure and meaning. CSS, also known as cascading style sheets, is a presentation language created to give content style and appearance." "Elements are designators that define objects within a page, including structure and content. Some of the more popular elements include h1 through h6, p, a, div, span, strong, and em." It's friend…

It is both a reference guide and an introduction to HTML & CSS. This was built (initially) as a compliment to Shay's weekly lecture to the Code Academy.

Most of our students in Code Academy are "fresh beginners" and have been going through Shay's class for the past four weeks, and they have been improving greatly from the first day of class. They are currently learning web development, so they are definitely picking key concepts for Shay's class to help with their front-end learning.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#67

Post by nazar »

natep wrote: post #29
tabaflaba wrote: post #17

No one uses the strong tag.

False. At the very least, Reddit uses the strong tag, and so I don't feel like scouring the web for more bold text. I did do one search, and it turns out other people recommend strong over b in most situations, like this person: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/649305/alternative-to-the...

I read the arguments regarding the strong and b tags, and I tried to see a difference between the two but failed to do so.

From the above link

>If you want to stress importance of text, use strong. If you don't want to stress importance, use the b tag or use the font-weight:bold; style on the element or in the CSS.

Am I missing something? I've been writing html for long enough time not to consider myself beginner but it still doesnt make sense to me.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#68

Post by alexholehouse »

yogsototh wrote: post #50
sequoia wrote: post #32

I'm so mad I metacaptioned an image. http://i.qkme.me/35uqnl.jpg Seriously tho, http://screencast.com/t/Qunx72f4rJC I know these aren't ready yet so they're deemphasized, but I'd like to be able to read them anyway. :)

First, this kind of comment about the appearance of a website should be done by asking directly and nicely to the author. For example you can easily direct message him on twitter instead of polluting the HN comment thread which should always contain useful and informative comment. Second. I can read them pretty nicely on my computer. It is clear a lot of work was made to make this website very nice. Your comment is a…

I agree with all the subsequent discussion, but I would add that I disagree that,

"this kind of comment about the appearance of a website should be done by asking directly and nicely to the author"

Given the site has been posted to a public forum, it's useful, both for the author and for other designers, to get a feel of how the community (read into that what you will) feels about a design, rather than simply one individual's private perception.

I also agree, however, that I personally don't see it as a major issue (I've included this statement to validate my original point - how meta...)

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#69

Post by tabaflaba »

natep wrote: post #29
tabaflaba wrote: post #17

No one uses the strong tag.

False. At the very least, Reddit uses the strong tag, and so I don't feel like scouring the web for more bold text. I did do one search, and it turns out other people recommend strong over b in most situations, like this person: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/649305/alternative-to-the...

HTML describes a document semantically and using tags like and is bad practice. Styling, like what results from using and , should be done via css.

Re: Beginners Guide to HTML/CSS

#70

Post by underdown »

stillawesome wrote: post #13

I made this website for a course I am teaching at Code Academy ( http://codeacademy.org ) in Chicago, IL. The website here is a work in progress and is being tested out in class. Thanks for all of the feedback so far, I will do my best to incorporate it. Please stay tuned for updates and more lessons to come!

Hey Shay - Glad to see you on hacker news.
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