Many years ago, I was introduced to HTML by my favorite high school teacher through a series of tutorials on HTMLGoodies.com titled “So, you want to learn HTML, huh?” by Joe Burns, Ph. D. These articles were written as primers and the writing style really sparked my love of building websites. I started coding that day and haven’t looked back.
Thanks for the history lesson, but now what?
Where should you start? Well, that depends on your learning style and your goal. There are many places on the internet. HTML Goodies is still around, but now we have places like Codecademy with interactive, online lessons. In addition to the self-paced tutorials you can find many instructional videos on YouTube but if in-class learning is your thing Coder Bootcamps are popping up all over the place. These abbreviated, no-fluff courses are a trial-by-fire into the ways of web development.
To get started you don’t need anything fancy, just a text editor. I recommend something like Sublime Text or VS Code to get you started. Both can be used for free and are available on Windows and OSX. Do you need one of these? No, but you do need something with syntax highlighting. As long as you have something to use you are good to go.
The next step is to get a good understanding of the basics, this includes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You don’t need an in-depth understanding but you should at least be familiar with each. Start with HTML, it’s the basic code used on all websites. From there, learn how to style your pages with CSS. Once you have that down move on to JavaScript (JS) to add some interactivity.
Is there anything specific you would like to know about? Drop a comment to let me know.
Hi Adam. I am very interested in learning php. I had played around with a script that’s pretty cool since 2000. It is now so deprecated that it only runs on php5.5. I would love to learn how to update the syntax. Would you teach me?
Lonny Sarao
Bookyouract.com/songs.php
If you share the code with me I can take a look. There have been a large number of changes over the years so it’s hard to say exactly what your problem may be without seeing the code.
I’m glad you are still around. I myself started with that same html site. I wish it was still up and running. If it is please let me know the url.
Also I have some word press questions. For some reason we can’t figure out how to edit simple sample theme content without purchasing some subscription to a WordPress editor. There must be a way. What is it ?
Thank you for any help
That really depends on the theme, they may have it “locked down” until you purchase the premium version of their theme (a bad business tactic In my opinion, but to each his own) or join their hosting service (also a bad practice).
If you have your own WordPress site setup you should be able to add your own pages or posts without any restrictions. If you have a theme that is restricting your ability to change content on your site, it’s time to look for a new theme. The WordPress core themes have come a long way and may offer you the features you need, at least while you look for something different.