Is there a Pre to HTML?

[Kainage]

Before the end of this post everyone here will know just how new to the web building process i am. I have a friend that made a webpage that he was pretty proud of ( it looked nice to me) and like to show off to the rest of us NOOBs. From so of the things he spoke of I became interested and my loving girlfriend went of and bought me 2 random books. One was a Dummies book on Html and another was a Php/myscl book. As much as i love her i know rarely does it work out where random books are the best for you to start learning on. Also the php book said that you need a working knowledge of html. So my questions are (1) is the there a book that i should read before the Html? (2) what are the best books or sites for a newbie to learn? (3) From looking at these forums it appears there are a ton of diffrent lanuages, how do you decide what is best or is this something that im no giving the next 20 years of my life to learning all of these? Any help would be great.

[b.squires]

Well to be honest with you I don't believe there was any Pre HTML that you need to worry yourself with. I would start out by learning HTML first get as in depth as you can with it. You've taken the first step in the right direction by subscribing to a forum page. You will learn by asking questions, and lots of them. In my experience some of the quickest books to learn the basics and by quickest I don't mean it brims through, are the Peachpit Press books. They give pretty good details about each language and the basics to it, teaches you how to program in it as the basics, but programming is all about using your imagination. Take each tag, attribute and play around with it so that you get comfortable with it and eventually by asking questions, experimenting you will learn new ways to make things look cool. And GOD NO! it shouldn't take you 20 yrs to learn these. HAPPY PROGRAMMING!

[welsh]

hey, this is a good site to help out out.
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

also the Php/mysql book im in the middle of reading. its one of the languges on the web that allow to do more than html.

[Charles]

The W3schools site has quite a few problem with it. It not as bad as the abysmal HTML Goodies site, but be careful nonetheless.

A good place to start, but not a comfortable one, is http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ .

[MstrBob]

Yeah, that's how it all starts, isn't it? The PHP/MySQL book you'll probably want to put away for awhile. PHP can be incredibly powerful (for instance, it powers this whole forum system we're using) and MySQL is a very nice Open-Source database (which this forum, once again, uses to store all its information). But I would focus on HTML and CSS before thinking about any kinds of programming. Why? Well, you'll need to know them well before you start programming, and because learning how to make a standard web page is a quick, easy, and (well, I think) fun way of learning a lot more about the Internet, the World Wide Web, and computers in general.

There are a plethora of books and websites out there. I myself learned online through a variety of tutorials and view the source code of different websites. (Which can be accomplish by right-clicking on a website, and selecting View Source). W3Schools is nice, but I find it can also be a little baren of details. The problem you'll probably find online is that many tutorials are incorrect and/or uncomplete. (Though the same can be said for many HTML books).

I've a project that I really should one day get around to finishing (I'm contributing here to uncomplete tutorials) but the beginning is halfway decent, I think. The Web Developer's Guide (http://wdhaven.com/guide/index.php/Main_Page). A friend of mine also is working on a very good tutorial, more complete than mine: The HTML Document from Top to Bottom (http://coachrandom.furtopia.org/tutorial/).

I'll also point out two tools for you that will be very handy for you when you start making webpages.

HTML Validator (http://validator.w3.org/) - Makes sure your HTML is written correctly and checks for any errors and mistakes.
CSS Validator (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/) - Same idea as the HTML Validator, it checks to make sure your CSS is free from errors.

Asside from a good tutorial, and a support forum like this, all you need to make webpages is a text editor (Many people, like myself, start off with notepad) and a browser (Like Internet Explorer or (I highly recommend) Mozilla Firefox (http://mozilla.com)).

Do enjoy yourself!

[Sunny G]

Welcome to our webdeveloping world.
Learning HTML is simple enough, it just takes time. After that, you should learn CSS (If you plan to use HTML in the long run.

[felgall]

1. HTML
2. CSS
3. Javascript
4. PHP (or other server side language)
5. mySQL (or other database)

[Kainage]

Thanks guys for the help.