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Comment by have_faith | Hacker News Reader

I'd be interested in your definition of complete beginner? As I think some of the language could be simplified further. For instance:

> Think of HTML as the abstract text and images behind a web page, CSS as the page that actually gets displayed

Is actually quite a nuanced way of looking at a webpage. What does 'abstract text' mean to an absolute beginner? And it makes CSS sound like what I imagine people intuitively would think HTML is. As in HTML is the content that gets displayed and CSS is what adds colour, structure, design etc. It also sounds like images are HTML, but maybe I'm nitpicking a bit too much.

Regardless, it's a good effort and no doubt a useful resource for the right learner.

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When I was a complete beginner, in childhood, I didn't understand why the code I copied from a random library book into WordPerfect was not 'running'.

That's what I think of when I read 'complete beginner' - and people seem to shy away from those very important tooling concepts.

Exactly. My girlfriend always wonders what i actually do at work (she's a fashion designer) and she can't even comprehend what code is nor how its run.

Common questions include: "So do you just sit there all day and type code?", "would you be able to code facebook?", "Can you please use your code skills and fix the TV? (it was set on a different HDMI input after I finished playing PS4 and forgot to switch it back)"

It's cute, but a complete beginner literally can't even fathom what a computer loosely does inside/how it runs code aside from utter magic

Ah, yes, good ol' could you code facebook.

I had similar thoughts. Another example: the illustrations on the home page are pretty, but they're using terms like "elements", "selectors", "classes". A true beginner has no idea what these are.

I take it these were just a sample that was taken from one of the lessons, but I wonder if there are better beginner-friendly illustrations to start off with on the landing page.

Just a minor suggestion. Otherwise, this looks like a great resource!

Exactly what I was thinking.

Another thing: The illustrations are nice to look at, but why not show your readers what the code is actually going look like? Use editable embeds or something like that. Let them play around. That's why Codecademy has a well-balanced learning curve for absolute beginners.

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