Let’s Talk Coding… (Again)

I know we’ve talked before about how learning as much as you can about a select group of programing languages would benefit you a TON, but I felt it was a good time to do talk about it again in the hopes of hopefully informing some new people. I’ve actually seen a TON of web design/code related questions in the last few days and it reminded me that so many people just freeze and don’t even think to try and figure it out for themselves.

The best thing you can do if you’ve never done anything with HTML and CSS is to dive into some Wordpress theme files on your FTP and just have a look around. The stuff ain’t rocket science that’s for sure!

The way you should be looking at it is that you should be looking at HTML, CSS and PHP throughout each day just to remain fluent with it. You don’t have to learn it and you don’t have to go searching for any tutorials online if you don’t want to. Although, tutorials certainly couldn’t HURT could they?

Anyway, basically what you should be doing iis when you come to a road block on your site and you discover you need to play with some code to fix iit, your first stop should be Google. Asap. What you’re going to do is type your coding problem into Google and throw in HTML, CSS and/or PHP depending on which you need to be working with and hit enter. Bam! A list of websites with answers to your coding question!

Go through them and read and learn. Make sure you don’t copy/paste anything unless it’s too long and instead type it out. Not only will you develop more of a feel for the design language but you’ll also actually be forced to do some frigging work for a change. Wah-wahhhhh….

That’s pretty much all there is to it. HTML and CSS are about the LEAST scary languages possible so don’t even get flustered if you have something you’re fiddling with with them. PHP on the other hand can be an entirely different animal — but still try it yourself before you go begging on Internet Forums or chat rooms asking for someone to basically stop what they’re doing, teach you a piece of code you could have taught yourself with effective Google searching, and then not getting paid a damn red cent for it. Good times!

Learn by doing, kids. It’s the way to go with everything. ESPECIALLY while trying to get the hang of HTML, CSS and PHP.

Good luck!