If you don't know any coding whatsoever, you should start. Most people don't even have a clue as to what HTML is. They couldn't even guess within the ball park of what HTML actually is. I have to admit, I was one of those people. I'm a little embarrassed, but it just goes to show you how far people can go and come from with concerted effort and motivation to learn something and achieve new skills.
What is HTML? I'll try to explain it through an example. It's just a way to tell the browser what the website is supposed to look like and how it is supposed to be structured. So for example, if you write <strong>, that is just telling the browser that the words within that little tag is supposed to be bold. If you write <br>, you saying to the browser, hey, browser, how's it going? Could you please skip a line before you put some more content?
That's really it, structure and general look. If you want to make a website look nice, then that's where CSS comes in. You really need to know CSS if you want to make a website look nice at all. So where can you get started? Well, start with W3schools or Codecademy and you can move on after that. If you are willing to put in two weeks of concerted effort, or even less, you should have a really good concept of what HTML is. From there, you can learn new languages and gain new skills that are really valued in the marketplace at the moment. Go forth, young man or woman!
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Codecademy Is Great
If you want to learn the basics of coding, then Codecademy is a great resource. It's free, so you might as well check it out. They have interactive lessons that aren't videos but are cool and fun enough to keep your attention. My qualm with it is the lack of personal interaction and the lack of a full library. This is something that they will come up with over time, and I can't really complain at the moment because it's free. Overall, it's amazing and I would highly recommend it. I would also recommend supplementing with another resource like Lynda or Team Treehouse. Those are both really good options for learning coding as well.
I guess this was a short post, but hopefully it was inspiring for you and will help push you over the edge to get started with coding today. If anything, I think that Codecademy would inspire you and motivate you to learn more. It's not going to take you where you would like to go by yourself, BUT it will get you started, help you learn the basics, and push you to learn and investigate more of what is the world of coding.
I guess this was a short post, but hopefully it was inspiring for you and will help push you over the edge to get started with coding today. If anything, I think that Codecademy would inspire you and motivate you to learn more. It's not going to take you where you would like to go by yourself, BUT it will get you started, help you learn the basics, and push you to learn and investigate more of what is the world of coding.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
CSS is Cool but Annoying
I love and hate CSS. The reason why is that it has so many possibilities to make beautiful websites. The problem is the reality of it. It's pretty annoying. There's all these little problems that happen for absolutely no reason at all. It seems like it would be really easy for someone to spend some time fixing the language and making all the annoying problems go away. But that hasn't happened yet. Knowing whether you should do float left or you should do inline block is seemingly random.
There's all these little peculiarities that you need to learn through experience. Your code will never be perfect and you will be debugging things all the time. Furthermore, different browsers support different levels of css. Some properties and values are not supported in certain browsers, so a website that would look good on Chrome may not look good at all on Internet Explorer.
While CSS has profound possibilities, the reality of it is that it is pretty tedious, it is full of little peculiarities, and you really have to practice with it for a long time before you can really say that you have it mastered. It's all worth it in the end though and you should definitely learn it. It may dismay and discourage a lot of people, but if you can get past that, you will understand something that is very important and potentially very profitable. This is a skill that is only going to be in higher and higher demand and more and more things move online. SO, head to W3Schools, and start learning something today!
There's all these little peculiarities that you need to learn through experience. Your code will never be perfect and you will be debugging things all the time. Furthermore, different browsers support different levels of css. Some properties and values are not supported in certain browsers, so a website that would look good on Chrome may not look good at all on Internet Explorer.
While CSS has profound possibilities, the reality of it is that it is pretty tedious, it is full of little peculiarities, and you really have to practice with it for a long time before you can really say that you have it mastered. It's all worth it in the end though and you should definitely learn it. It may dismay and discourage a lot of people, but if you can get past that, you will understand something that is very important and potentially very profitable. This is a skill that is only going to be in higher and higher demand and more and more things move online. SO, head to W3Schools, and start learning something today!
Monday, September 15, 2014
Treehouse was a great resource
I have been using Team Treehouse for a few months now. It's the perfect system to help you learn to code. I have found that it is especially good for learning how to make a website and thus languages like html, css, and javascript. It's improving on programming languages like php and ruby. I have so far just used it to learn basic website design languages.
I like the set up. In the How To Make A Website series of videos, you literally learn the basics of how to make a website. I didn't have a complete understanding of how it all worked until I went through these videos. After you are done with them, you feel like you can really learn anything. Treehouse provides code challenges and quizzes after every video or two in order to make sure you fully understand the concepts. I would strongly suggest you take the information that you learn and start putting it to practice. Learning to make a website is not something you should just learn on a theoretical level. You need to get in the weeds and start making your own websites. That is by far the best way to get started and to learn. Practice makes perfect is especially relevant to making websites.
As time moves on, Treehouse will keep adding videos. What I would like to see is more things like the How To Make A Website series of videos. I want to see someone show me a website they made and then deconstruct it and show us every step of the way. If they can put together 3-4 modules just like that, with increasing complexity, that would really go a long way at crystallizing the information that I've learned. This is something that shouldn't be too hard to do and I think it makes logical sense that they will do this in the future.
In the meantime, Team Treehouse has been fantastic. I will probably supplement this with one or two other resources like Codecademy, but I am extremely happy so far and will happily continue paying the monthly subscription fee.
For a further review of Treehouse, I would recommend this or this.
I like the set up. In the How To Make A Website series of videos, you literally learn the basics of how to make a website. I didn't have a complete understanding of how it all worked until I went through these videos. After you are done with them, you feel like you can really learn anything. Treehouse provides code challenges and quizzes after every video or two in order to make sure you fully understand the concepts. I would strongly suggest you take the information that you learn and start putting it to practice. Learning to make a website is not something you should just learn on a theoretical level. You need to get in the weeds and start making your own websites. That is by far the best way to get started and to learn. Practice makes perfect is especially relevant to making websites.
As time moves on, Treehouse will keep adding videos. What I would like to see is more things like the How To Make A Website series of videos. I want to see someone show me a website they made and then deconstruct it and show us every step of the way. If they can put together 3-4 modules just like that, with increasing complexity, that would really go a long way at crystallizing the information that I've learned. This is something that shouldn't be too hard to do and I think it makes logical sense that they will do this in the future.
In the meantime, Team Treehouse has been fantastic. I will probably supplement this with one or two other resources like Codecademy, but I am extremely happy so far and will happily continue paying the monthly subscription fee.
For a further review of Treehouse, I would recommend this or this.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Make Money On The Side With Coding
One reason that I feel coding can be really valuable is if you just do it as a hobby and make money on the side. You would be surprised at how much money you can get for making a website and for not that much time either. If you understand how to code and you understand how wordpress works, you can make so much money. The trouble with this will be figuring out how to get clients pouring in. However, if you can just get a first couple of clients, and you do a good job, you will have a working portfolio that you can show to people and then you will most likely be able to get referrals as well. If you understand search engine optimization, you can have your personal website show up when people search for website designers and coders in your local area.
What would you do if you had an extra $1,000 a month? How about $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 or even $5,000? It would be amazing of course and it would allow you to have amazing flexibility to pretty much do whatever you want, within reason of course. Most people think you should learn to code so that you can get a job in the technology and startup world. BUT, if you have a standard job with reasonable hours, you can easily make a lot of money on the side learning to code. Most people aren't too happy with their current salary and benefits. They would be especially happy if they had the opportunity to make some extra money on the side.
There's a few different things you can do with coding on the side for money. The easiest thing to do would be to learn basic front-end languages, mainly html, css, and javascript. Then you should learn how the basic CMS's work, like Wordpress. From there, you should just practice making websites. After a few new websites, you will really get the hang of it and then you can make any basic website that anyone could ever want. This is where you can contract with local companies and professional service providers to make websites for them. You can make a few thousand dollars a pop in some instances. It's really great.
Outside of that, you can really learn how to program. That is something I wouldn't recommend unless you are super serious about it and understand the time commitment. You don't know to learn programming in order to make that much money. Just stick with the front-end languages and you'll be fine.
What would you do if you had an extra $1,000 a month? How about $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 or even $5,000? It would be amazing of course and it would allow you to have amazing flexibility to pretty much do whatever you want, within reason of course. Most people think you should learn to code so that you can get a job in the technology and startup world. BUT, if you have a standard job with reasonable hours, you can easily make a lot of money on the side learning to code. Most people aren't too happy with their current salary and benefits. They would be especially happy if they had the opportunity to make some extra money on the side.
There's a few different things you can do with coding on the side for money. The easiest thing to do would be to learn basic front-end languages, mainly html, css, and javascript. Then you should learn how the basic CMS's work, like Wordpress. From there, you should just practice making websites. After a few new websites, you will really get the hang of it and then you can make any basic website that anyone could ever want. This is where you can contract with local companies and professional service providers to make websites for them. You can make a few thousand dollars a pop in some instances. It's really great.
Outside of that, you can really learn how to program. That is something I wouldn't recommend unless you are super serious about it and understand the time commitment. You don't know to learn programming in order to make that much money. Just stick with the front-end languages and you'll be fine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)