Coding challenges?

A "major" coding challenge would be applying all you've learned into a simple website for your portfolio. This will address most of the topics in HTML and CSS.

Yeah I just open up my text editor and start working with what I've learned. It makes it a fun challenge to work around different subjects I like and see how it turns out.

Thanks.

A good challenge that I use is to find a website I like and try to replicate it without looking at the source. Not only does it provide a good challenge, but you also have "the answers" ie: original source available to help you along if you get stuck.

Once you are finished compare your site structure to that of the original and if you find differences try to understand why the creator of the original made those decisions.

A first exercise in this might be to try the Treehouse website or blog, because you could then start a thread asking the course teachers why it was is better to do "X" than it is to do "Y" or "Z".

My advice is that now that you've covered the basics of webdesign it's time to focus in on the most important part ...

• Being able to select elements
• And position them on the page.

I had my first ah-ha moment with CSS when I figured out how to do this using floats. No absolute positioning, that would be cheating.

Source: Piet Mondrian Composition II

James could you elaborate on what you mean when you say using absolute positioning would be cheating? Thanks.

James that's a fantastic idea! I'll get onto that!

@James Barnett, not trying to be a dick here, but maybe an extensive tutorial or course about, for example, css positioning, with nice code challenges would be what paid members would expect from Treehouse?

You know, Treehouse's slogan is "From zero experience to job-ready", but all we get when we ask questions is you linking to external tutorials and courses...

Again, no offense intended here, just a genuine question.

Gonzalo - I don't work for Treehouse, I'm a paying member like you who just happens to spend a lot of time on the forums.

I'm sure the Treehouse staff would love to hear your feedback, I encourage you to post about it hear or if you want to email the staff directly at help@teamtreehouse.com

In my own personal journey to learn web design, I've found you can't learn everything from one site, I keep an ever growing list of resources I've found useful to supplement my learning at Treehouse.

For an interesting perspective on learning programming check out this article on struggle-based learning

Charles - As the goal is to practice using floats, so if you used absolute positioning in lieu of floats it would defeat the point of the exercise.