Rachel Andrew, How to learn CSS
As I read this article, it became more and more clear to me the importance of
understanding the basics of any topic, in this case the language of CSS, before
digging deeper into it and start applying its properties or rules. I’m the type
of person who prefers reading, learning and then practicing, rather than learning
as you go. I like to take my time, and once I got the basics, I learn fast.
Although, to actually feel confident in the basics takes me some time
(apparently, more than one semester when it comes to totally new topics for me,
like coding). More that a revision of what I had learned about CSS last semester,
I read this article as if it was the first time I had heard about “CSS”. I
realized that last semester I had been desperately trying to learn the things we
were taught, but the big blanks I had in the basics of coding weren’t allowing
me to move forward.
Like on the first day of class, I was taking notes throughout the whole reading,
firstly because I could finally feel like understanding, and secondly, for having
access to practical, simplified information about CSS. Even though “How to learn
CSS” by Rachel Andrew isn’t exactly a beginner's guide, it is a modern guide for
the key elements of CSS.
The first skill that caught my attention was the selectors, an alternative to
class. To be more specific, pseudo-class and pseudo-elements, a completely new
concept for me. An example of pseudo-class is p:first-child, which behaves as if
you added a class to the first p element. The pseudo-element selectors, for
example ::first-line, can style the first letter or line of an element or, I
learned with some more research, to insert content before or after the content
of an element. I was surprised to learn that a selector
like ::first-line can be used to change from font, to color, to alignment.
Another totally new and very attractive skill that I learned is the new box model.
As I learned last semester, the standard CSS Box Model takes the width given to an
element and adds onto that width the padding and border (meaning that the space
taken up by the element becomes larger). This could be very frustrating sometimes,
because the final result was a little unpredictable. But more recently, an alternate
Box Model is being used, which utilizes the given width on the element as the total
width of the visible element on screen: “Any padding or border will inset the
content of the box from the edges.”
I always thought that the most common things that people used in coding were
“the most common” for being the simplest, easiest and most practical. I learned
in this article that this isn’t always the case. What you use really depends on
what you’re trying to do, and what path fits you better for that specific purpose.
I was also interested in how the author mentions how outdated these misconceptions
about what's best to use are, and that very few people, including me, know about
the new, more advanced methods of today’s computing. Instead of spending hours
memorizing, one has to be practical and deeply learn only the basics. Thus, when
looking up online more complex skills, you’ll be able to understand and apply them.