The most basic and simplest thing in web development is HTML. It is not a programming language, do not make that mistake even if you’re drunk. It is a markup language and it’s used for the positioning of elements on the web page of a website. Elements are images, paragraphs, links, tables and the way they are positioned on a page mostly depends on HTML.
One inseparable thing with HTML is CSS (also not a programming language). It’s used to design the entire website and all the elements on it. It can be used to position certain elements, but the basic role is to affect things like the color of letters, background, font types, element sizes, their margins, boundaries, and shadows etc.
HTML and CSS make it possible to create a simple website like this one-page portfolio.
For this phase I recommend learning HTML and CSS basics:
- Codecademy – a free online platform, just sign up. Learn HTML and Learn CSS courses. During the course, the screen is vertically divided into three parts. The first is the text of the task, the second is the text editor in which the code is written and the third window is like a window in the Google Chrome browser showing how your code looks in the browser. This principle of work was motivating for me because it becomes obvious with how basic knowledge and few lines of code, you can make something yours and personal.
- Responsive Website Basics: Code with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (Goldsmiths, University of London) – Coursera platform for online courses from universities around the world, so-called MOOC. Only go through the first two weeks of this course, HTML and CSS. An important difference from Codecademy is that this course does not have this instant work environment, but you’ll learn how to start using HTML and CSS independently, testing your project in your browser (Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is a must). Installing the Sublime text editor, typing the code in it, saving the first page of the HTML code under the name index.html, double-clicking on that file in your browser, it opens your work in HTML.
With a daily engagement of 1 – 2 hours, this stage can be completed within a week.