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anthony amaro
8,686 Pointsi'm confused what to do next.
well i already finished the ccs and html basics course. and i dont know if i should keep practicing what i learnt from css and html courses and getting more comfortable with them before i start the javascript course. i been practicing trying to build my own page. but there is stuff that im still no comfortable with, like padding, margin, borders, or with the media queris. those are still confusing for me.. so should i keep practicing and getting more comfortable with it before i start the javascript course? hopefully someone can help. thanks
3 Answers
Daniel Hall
Courses Plus Student 882 PointsI would spend a few days just playing around with HTML and CSS to consolidate what I'd learned before moving on.
In my experience, playing around and testing things out is crucial if you want new concepts to really stick. You'll also pick up new things that weren't specifically mentioned in the course.
For example, I played around with the "text-transform" CSS property for half an hour after I watched that video and noticed that one of the property values didn't behave quite how I expected:
lowercase = made all letters lower case (as expected)
uppercase = made all letters upper case (as expected)
capitalize = made only the first letter upper case BUT didn't affect any of the OTHER letters at all - it left them in whatever case they were already in. This wasn't what I was expecting at all! I assumed it would bring any other capital letters down to lower case. Had I not had fun played around with it for a few minutes, I would not have tested my assumptions and fixed that gap in my knowledge. I also Googled it and found this discussion very helpful in explaining what I was observing.
So yes, I would keep playing around with it for a while - maybe for a few days (to give your brain time to absorb whatever you struggled with). Focus on whatever you feel least comfortable with. It'll be totally worth it!
Liam Clarke
19,938 PointsHi Anthony
Although not strictly necessary i do recommend you go over the HTML and CSS fundamentals again, re-watch the videos and try and pick up these concepts as they will be hugely beneficial to you when you start going more in depth.
However you do not need to know these to start on JavaScript. I do something similar, i can stare at something so long that nothing is going in anymore, in that case i would suggest returning to it after you've started the concepts of JavaScript.
If learning HTML CSS and JavaScript is the end goal, it doesn't matter which order you do it, do whats easiest for you.
That being said ill try and break down the few concepts that you mentioned in short words but you will require further reading:
Content, Padding, Borders and Margin
This is commonly known as the Box Model and it is how content is generated on to a page.
The content is the element, this is every element on a page. they have their own padding, margin and border
The border is a visual border that is displayed around an element.
The Padding and Margin are very similar in that they space out the content from other elements on the page, padding being before the border and margin being after. (Just think Padding Push the border)
The key point to take away though is that vertical margins auto-collapse and padding doesn't.
Media Quesries
Media queries are quite a wide topic but more specifically i think your talking about responsive behavior. I don't want to confuse you with this as there are many different ways to get around media queries so i will point you to the TreeHouse video that will hopefully clear things up for you Responsive layouts
Julius Nyule
5,528 PointsThanks, Liam for breaking down things :-)