HTML & CSS

Almost everyone learns CSS twice. The first time is by trial and error — add a property, refresh, see if it moved, undo it if it did not. That works for about a fortnight and then collapses, because the language is not arbitrary and the guessing was never going to scale. This course is the second time, done first.

HTML comes first and comes quickly. It is a small language with a short list of ideas, and an hour with Traversy is genuinely enough to write a real page. The freeCodeCamp course after it is there for people who want the exhaustive version; skipping it costs you nothing you cannot pick up later from a reference.

Then CSS, and here the sequence is doing real work. Layout is taught before decoration, and flexbox and grid each get two teachers rather than one — a short version to see the shape of it, then a longer one that explains why it behaves that way. Both modules are worth the repetition. Layout is the part people guess at for years, and the guessing stops the moment somebody explains what the browser is actually being asked to do.

Responsive design arrives last, which is deliberate. It is much easier to understand once you have layouts that already work, and much more confusing when bolted on as a mysterious extra. About five hours of required video, most of it in fifteen- and twenty-minute pieces, with roughly thirty more available in the optional lessons — animation, accessibility, and a full site built from scratch. Build a page alongside it — reading CSS teaches you very little.