Advice to a Friend on starting out with HTML and CSS

This is an outbound email but thought it would be helpful to others.

• It's very important to have a fast feedback cycle. You're in luck: JSfiddle and codepen are very good at this. CSS-tricks is also a very resourceful site. Especially with codepen you can reverse-engineer how certain things were done by others.
• It's 20% of tools and concepts you will use the most, for example: div, a, p h tags...

For css: understanding the box model is critical.

• It's very important to be hands-on. Never trust your brain that you got something by reading or watching a tutorial, the act of writing code "character by character" is powerful at anchoring the mind and making it learn brand new stuff.
• It's very important to build a lot of stuff.

The more you write code and meditate on it, the better you will be good at it.

• Knowing how to get help online is priceless:
  1. Clear description of what you're trying to do.
  2. What you're expecting to happen or see.
  3. What you're actually getting.

Most importantly have fun while messing with front-end stuff. Because everything you do is on browsers, share the links of what you build.

In the end making great stuff comes from "clarity of intent" and immensely wanting it.

Image by Lucas Bravo