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CSS CSS Foundations Selectors Basic Structural Pseudo-Classes

Help me keep motivated!

Watching CSS selectors is...yawn. Mind you, it's not the instructor, just the topic. How does this fit into the big picture of front-end web design; why is it important to pay attention?

5 Answers

Valery Kukatov
Valery Kukatov
6,996 Points

You are right this section is a bit boring. I just went through it as quickly as I possibly could. The goal is to learn how to write code more efficiently. If you are not planning to create major websites, these things don't really matter as you probably won't use them, but it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with them. Just sit through it and do the code challenge. You'll be fine. Think of the millions you could make if you actually knew every trick code has. This is just a step in the right directions. You got this dude!

Maybe I've missed the point of the question but you'll need css selectors for any type of website you build even if it's a single page.

The only situation I can think of where you could avoid knowing anything about selectors is with inline styles which are generally considered bad practice for most use cases.

Basically, you're not going to be able to write any css if you don't know how to use selectors.

I'm not saying you have to memorize every single selector there is because some you will use rarely, if at all. But there's certainly a handful that you will find yourself using all the time.

The type, class, id, and descendant selectors are probably the most common to use.

Valery Kukatov
Valery Kukatov
6,996 Points

You are right, but I was referring to this particular video. Never have I used first child and others like that in my CSS. Not that it's not important to know, but the chances of using this particular method are slim in my experience. I'm not a pro of course and web design is not my main interest.

He should definitely learn these ways, but only come back and watch these videos again if he really needs to use these particular methods. Majority of the selectors are important though. There is no reason to make a page all fancy with a ton of code selecting each specific element, you are not exactly building a rainbow, but a good looking website. As this specific video was indeed boring as these styling methods are hard to implement, when there are much simpler ways to style your page.

Valery, thanks for the encouragement. I like to know how the things I'm learning fit together fairly early on instead of just getting through the exercises. It got to the point of working another exercise that looked like the last one and it started to feel more like an "isn't that cool?" video . As the saying goes, I couldn't 'see the forest for the trees'. I agree that becoming familiar with this material will be useful. Some of it though may be best used as a reference for use in certain applications.

Dan Ridley
PLUS
Dan Ridley
Courses Plus Student 14,839 Points

CSS is so powerful. I have been studying and using CSS for 4 years and I am still wrapping my head around it. It is really important to pay attention to all the selectors. They will make you code so much more efficient and powerful. Keep at it!

You will not be able to apply any styles to your elements if you do not know how to select them in your css rules. I'd say that's pretty important

CSS selectors are the way in which we target our elements for styling.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

In terms of CSS there are 2 key skills:

  • select an element
  • lay it out on the page
Larry Cousino
Larry Cousino
23,127 Points

Are you interested in becoming a front end developer? If not, just getting a grasp will help you support & understand the front end developers. If you are and it completely bores you, maybe this isn't for you. Don't mean to sound harsh, but life is too short to waste time on something you don't care for. Just sayin'

Good luck on whatever you choose to pursue!

Kieran Shepherd
Kieran Shepherd
6,415 Points

jQuery uses essentially the same syntax. I use it every day in my job. It is important so I would pay attention.