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CSS CSS Basics (2014) Basic Layout Backgrounds: Color and Images

Stephen Blair
PLUS
Stephen Blair
Courses Plus Student 3,248 Points

This entire stream is completely confusing!

I started with Digital Literacy and Joy's teaching style was so clear, concise and to the point. I understood everything and it moved at a very manageable pace.

I then moved onto Web Design, starting with Nick and breezed through the topics just as before with Digital Literacy.

Now I am onto the CSS steam as part of this Web Design track and to say I am lost would be a bit of an understatement! There are so many concepts introduced at once and its unbelievably confusing, so much so that I have had to exit and move onto something else as I have lost focus and interest altogether.

Here is this idea, you can put it here and it will do this, but if you name this bit here it will override this, also you can size it with this this and this, but you need to do these maths for that bit like this. You can do it across 4 rows like this, but lets delete that and just do it in one line like this, actually lets delete that again and just do it like this because they're the same. You can use these values, or these other values and even negative ones like this, but negative ones are bad so lets delete that and go back to this..... ARGH!

I personally think this stream is way too long and goes back and forth between too many concepts at once. I'm almost at the end and I don't even know how to simply size and place objects on the page the way I want them.

Does anybody else feel like this? Any help, suggestions, ideas?!

Thank you!

Justin Malik
Justin Malik
996 Points

Welcome to Coding. I am currently in school for computer science and i completely understand you're frustration. The thing is they are going to show you ever little detail about everything starting from the wrong way first then the most efficient and concise way of doing it. It can be tedious and a pain but just take your time with it. I am not too big on CS but coding can get so deep and there are so many ways to do different things especially when you start exploring other languages and wanna move onto other projects. The best thing I can say is to just take ti step by step and understand that you will get mad cause trust me we all do

2 Answers

millogt
millogt
7,644 Points

I've done the HTML (how to make a website) and the CSS (basics) and am now getting started with JavaScript. If u think HTML and CSS are difficult, wait till u see JavaScript lol.

A good tip is to try and write things down as u go along with the videos so u can look it up again later. I planned on doing this for HTML and CSS but never did till I came to JavaScript but I will go over previous videos again to mark things down.

Other than that u learn by doing so start coding websites to get a grip of it. I also try to help people on the forum here as that way I need to look up whats wrong with the code and it refreshes what I have seen before.

I also bookmarked 2 videos from the series that could help u with tips:

https://teamtreehouse.com/library/how-to-make-a-website/debugging-html-and-css-problems/continue-learning

https://teamtreehouse.com/library/css-basics/fundamental-concepts/learning-tips-and-tools

Hope this helps!

Stephen Blair
Stephen Blair
Courses Plus Student 3,248 Points

Thank you so much! I'm definitely going to have to go back over the CSS videos! I get most of it but the positioning and sizing of objects completely confused me due to multiple examples being given.

Don't worry, I found that stuff can be confusing for beginners.

A lot of the stuff you find confusing now will be covered in deep detail in future videos.

Don't look at the code you don't understand; the teacher will explain that part of the code later! Focus on the code the teacher is trying to explain and at least try to understand. If you miss anything important, don't worry! The important parts are always covered over and over again.

All programmers start out very confused, not only on Treehouse! Even myself was extremely confused when I was first learning programming. (No, I didn't start learning programming on Treehouse. I found Treehouse when I already had some programming knowledge!)

Some important things you should do as a beginner:

  • Your brain can't remember everything! Write down stuff that you fins important.
  • Follow along the videos! This is very important! If you don't do so, you will feel lost when you actually write code for the first time.
  • Don't skip the Code Challenges and Quizzes!! This is the way Treehouse can reinforce your skills and make sure you had understood the videos. If you ever feel stuck in a quiz/code challenge, you can always review the videos.
  • If you feel like you forgot something, review the videos so you won't forget.
  • If you are ever totally stuck and reviewed the videos once or more, you can reach out for the Community! Don't be shy, we :heart: questions! :smiley:

I hope this helps :grin:

Happy coding! :tada:

:dizzy: ~Alex :dizzy: