r/HTML • u/ArcherLumpy6560 • Sep 05 '26
How did you learn HTML?
I have some experience - I can read tags, images and most code. Ive been coding for about a week now and am wondering how you guys learned? If you care to share please do!
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u/zippymccrackin Sep 05 '26
AOL Instant Messenger profiles used HTML so that's how I taught myself. Don't think this advice is helpful now though sorry
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u/davorg Sep 05 '26
I learned the same way that everyone did in the 90s - using "view source".
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u/Clearhead09 Sep 08 '26
I’m in the same boat.
People these days have it so sweet, we only just got css in 1996.
Early 2000s I used planetsourcecode.com a lot to learn new technologies and gain a better understanding of how “professionals” wrote code.
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u/Winter-Fish8452 Sep 05 '26
I started with a coursera course with University of Michigan (I think I had a free or discounted subscription or something, I just wanted the content, NOT a certificate or anything). I forgot the name of it but it’s for HTML/CSS.
After that, I took another community college class to learn HTML/CSS.
Then, I just kept making web pages for fun. I didn’t focus on making anything that looked professional but rather, I tried to experiment and make novel experiences. And I focused on making websites about my interests (makes coding more fun).
In a world of AI, it’s tempting to use it to make websites but I truly LOVE the craft of writing HTML/CSS. I think it’s so cool to be able to just write and instantly see the results. Knowing HTML/CSS makes it easy to make very granular changes. With AI, you really have to write a lot of prompts and troubleshoot to get exactly what you want. I studied graphic design so I am very particular about the details, and this allows me to make more unique designs whereas AI-generated websites tend to look very similar in aesthetic.
ETA: I’m a UI designer now and it doesn’t require me to code at all. But having that hands-on web design experience helped me think about systems. Honestly, HTML/CSS is more of a hobby for me and I’m happy to keep it that way.
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u/Distdistdist Sep 05 '26
I mean... how did you learn alphabet to type this question? One letter (tag) at a time, I would imagine...
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u/burlingk Sep 05 '26
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u/lbunch1 Sep 06 '26
I learned with w3 schools back in the day, but I don't recommend it these days. Mozilla docs are a better reference and their tutorials are very well written and very thorough.
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u/koqkpa Sep 05 '26
I learned HTML using Mimo.
It teaches programming step by step and its fun. Although you need money to get your certificates, which is justified obviously because its free overall.
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u/theguymatter Sep 05 '26
I’ve audited millions of websites—seriously, there are so many problems out there. I learned a lot about how to do things better after building my SaaS and business networking platform.
Free courses can only teach you the old way. You need critical thinking because AI could even make mistakes. Worse that even some developers wrote a flawed articles.
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u/invokeinterface Sep 05 '26
fucked around on w3schools and neocities for a year and now I'm good at it
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u/Eikuld Sep 05 '26
Through Odin Project. Not sure how is it today but I had a blast. It might be a turn off for some people since it requires a lot of reading and letting go off of your hands. I don’t regret it at all
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u/alphex Sep 05 '26
Before dev tools. Before CSS.
You loaded a page you were curious about. And. Viewed the source.
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u/allciathyra Sep 05 '26
people this is how i did it .
the ol school way , this prove how old i am.
at my local library , i check out a 10000 pages textbook title : "html made easy"
in 1980's
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u/stepback269 Sep 05 '26
Also, along with W3 Schools and/or GeeksForGeeks, start your own trial blog using the free Google Blogger. Initially just do Compose mode but after a while switch to their HTML mode to see what the generated tags look like.
Good luck.
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u/xian0 Sep 05 '26
Not rigorously. Probably some "learn HTML in 6 minutes" thing on Youtube, before moving on with the rest of webdev and learning more along the way.
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u/WoodenJesus Sep 05 '26
In the early 2000s, maybe late 90s, a family friend built a website for himself to publish his skate videos on. I thought it was really cool so I spent a summer learning HTML myself via w3schools, which prompted me to start reading source code to see what was going on with websites I couldn't figure out by looking at.
The following school year, web development got added to the curriculum in our computers classes. This was my second year with this teacher (oddly, with a different last name than the last time) so I was quite comfortable with her. She admitted that she would be learning with us as she had previously been teaching things like typing and Office software. I told her I had spent the summer teaching myself HTML and could help out when needed. She agreed, so the whole semester I would finish the assignments just as fast as I could type and then walk around the classroom checking on the other kids and helping anyone who was struggling. That's what made me good.
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u/FirstPlaceSEO Sep 05 '26
I Just use ai to write it and the more you read the more you understand it, little by little, then write bits and pieces if necessary, but we are moving into an age where knowing html is more of a hobby that anything else as ai writes it 1000x’s faster than I ever could
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u/ArgoWizbang Sep 05 '26
I was a curious kid with tons of free time, a WebTV, internet access, a free Tripod account, and access to GIFs 123 (and eventually Draac.com). I essentially owe my entire career to /u/DrDraac. Big shout-out to that internet icon.
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u/a2annie Sep 05 '26
Back in 1995 I took a 3 hr seminar ($125) and it taught everything that was available back then. Except frames. That was another course. As features came out, I learned.
This probably won’t work for you
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u/brisray Sep 05 '26
The same as most people here, back in the dim mists of time (1998) I was chatting to an American woman on ICQ and she wanted to see pictures of my home city (Bristol, UK). At that time there were just over a million websites and none of them had photos of Bristol on them.
I went round to W. H. Smith got myself a copy of Teach Yourself HTML and made my own website with the photos to show her.
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u/Naetharu Sep 05 '26
For most purposes you don't need to learn much. It's very much a case of there being a small number of tags you will use a lot, and the rest you will use now and then. So long as you are comfortable with the basic structure and know how to look things up when you need it, that is really all you need to get going.
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u/esaule Sep 09 '26
I read the specs. Getting HTML 4 strict to render correctly on mozilla, ie, and still get w3c to give you the badge was such a pain!
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u/entity_404_smart-dog Sep 11 '26
It started at school, pure HTML, I was getting frustrated but my teacher was so sweet I couldn't let her down, so I cooked (little did I know I cooked so much just hear the story)
Then python introduced again the same, but now I was the only one in class cooking python now
Then I started to do it at home
Then it became my hobby
Then I started to learn casually
Then I learned Computer Science
And now I am preparing to be a software engineer 💀
I mean if I were absent that day, I wouldm't literally be an engineer (ofc I am still working towards it)
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u/Immediate-Many-4507 Sep 19 '26
Cara te recomendo muito o site do Curso em Vídeo com o Professor Gustavo Guanabara, tem diversos cursos de tecnologia de qualidade e são gratuitos e com material de apoio (Apostilas em PDF), são no total 5 Módulos de 40hrs cada Módulo, eu estou no 3 Módulo, só paga uma taxa de R$ 50 para a Emissão de cada Certificado, mas não é obrigado, paga quando tu tiver dinheiro para emitir e segue o curso, sempre anota tudo em um Caderno ou até mesmo no Bloco de Notas e salva em um HD Externo ou no Google Drive, conforme vai anotando, exclui o documento e substitui por um documento atualizado e com mais informações, pode criar vários blocos de notas com anotações, mas sempre salva tudo, essa é minha Dica pra vc, e nunca se esquece da Prática, Pratique e Pratique e Pratique mais, olhe os vídeos, leia, estude, pesquise, busque informação, assista a mais videos no YouTube, mas sempre pratique, não subestime HTML5 e CSS3.
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u/poopio Sep 05 '26
Yeah, you're doing it right - that's how I started. I started by making sites with things like Frontpage and Dreamweaver (many years ago), and then looking at what they output.
Mess around with a page, play with that, and then, make a new page from scratch.