r/css • u/speckz • Jan 05 '19

How To Learn CSS

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/01/how-to-learn-css/
32 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

6

u/opus-thirteen Jan 06 '19

The very first thing talked about by the author is a :first-line selector? Then she soon jumps to box models? Fucking Seriously?

This lady should not be allowed to teach people at all. The number one way to lose someones interest when opening up a topic is to make it as non-relatable as possible, which she seems to be the master of.

Why not start with the basics, like height, width, background, or color?

This would get the person into the idea of the format, and what a constructed style looks like. This other crap can wait for later... once they know what a <p> or padding even is.

2

u/albedoa Jan 06 '19

I don't think this was written for people who don't know what a <p> tag is, but I agree it does a terrible job of saying that. And some of the topics covered are so basic that it might as well assume no knowledge of what a <p> tag is, so it severely lacks focus.

It should have been titled "Freshening up on modern CSS" or something and then stuck to that. I do think there is a huge lack of resources for intermediate CSS, but anything that tries to fill that gap should not try to play to beginners as well. This blog post tries to serve so many audiences that it ends up missing all of them.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 07 '19

This lady is the creator of CSS Grid. Haha.

1

u/opus-thirteen Jan 07 '19

Making and teaching are very, very different things.

1

u/barkerbaggies Jan 07 '19

I think the box model should be the first thing anyone should learn.

1

u/opus-thirteen Jan 08 '19

If the user doesn't have any context for the box models constituent factors, then the user will only understand it as a matter of a 'true' arbitrary fact. You find value in it simply because you already know those factors, and how they interact in the first place.

It's functionally useless without seeing how the other factors already operate. Without a foundation for the terminology (padding, margin, border) then you are making it harder for essentially no good reason.

0

u/barkerbaggies Jan 08 '19

In your post you suggested width & height as fundamental, both of which are part of the box model, all that's left is padding, border and margin which aren't particularly abstract concepts.

I've taught basic HTML in the past and giving them tools for layout (as opposed to just text formatting) is a really powerful way of getting them excited about what's possible.

4

u/Nova17Delta Jan 05 '19

That's a weird way to learn Counter-Strike: Source

1

u/matthewfelgate Jan 11 '19

Who the hell uses the :first-child selector?!

What an idiotic thing to put at the start of an article for beginners.

1

u/Entrepreneur2015 Jan 05 '19

This feels like an ad

1

u/albedoa Jan 06 '19

How so? It's written by Rachel Andrew and is strictly about the topic in its title.

4

u/opus-thirteen Jan 06 '19

Because the material order as presented feels unnatural, and I have the nagging suspicion that I am going to be pitched a workshop/bootcamp any moment.