{"id":283753,"date":"2019-03-08T08:20:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T15:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/css-tricks.com\/?p=283753"},"modified":"2019-03-10T19:22:33","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T02:22:33","slug":"hmtl-css-and-js-in-an-add-ocd-bi-polar-dyslexic-and-autistic-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/hmtl-css-and-js-in-an-add-ocd-bi-polar-dyslexic-and-autistic-world\/","title":{"rendered":"HTML, CSS and JS in an ADD, OCD, Bi-Polar, Dyslexic and Autistic World"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hey CSS-Tricksters! A lot of folks tweeted, emailed, commented and even courier pigeoned (OK, maybe not that) stories about their personal journeys learning web development after we published “The Great Divide”<\/a> essay. One of those stories was from Tim Smith and, it was so interesting, that we invited him to share it with the broader community. So, please help us welcome him as he elaborates on his unique personal experience and how it feels to be in his shoes as a front-ender.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have ADD<\/abbr>, OCD<\/abbr>, Bi-Polar<\/a>, Dyslexia\u2026 and not to mention that I am on the Autism spectrum<\/a>. This combination (apart from causing me to feel a lot of personal shame) makes coding very hard \u2014 especially learning how to code, which I am trying to do. Things get mixed up in my head and appear backwards to the point that I find it nearly impossible to focus any longer than 15-20 minutes at a time. Perhaps I will expand on this in another post. Even now as I write this, I feel pulled to rate each song on YouTube Music and attempt to correct every mistake I make. And since I keep switching \u201cwrite” with \u201cright,” this becomes infuriating and discouraging, to say the least.<\/p>\n I do not read well, so learning from books is the least effective way for me to learn (sorry O\u2019Reilly<\/a>). Online tutorials are OK, but I tend to sell myself short by being lazy with copy and paste for the code examples. If I force myself to hand-type the examples, I get the benefit of muscle memory but drown in the words of the tutorial and eventually lose interest altogether.<\/p>\n Video tutorials are my ideal learning method. There\u2019s no reading involved and no way for me to copy and paste my way out of things. Having to stop and start the videos in order to type the code is maddening, but well worth it. YouTube is a great place for video tutorials if you have the patience to wade through them\u2026 which I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n I found Chris Coyier in the early 2000s. The treasure trove of articles, guides, and videos contained here on CSS-Tricks has been a major benefit for me and actually progressed my ability to learn code. Later, I found Wes Bos. He, too, has been a leading contributor to my web learning. Wes unlocked many of the things I struggled with, namely React and the new features of ES6.<\/p>\n Together, I\u2019d say Chris and Wes are responsible for at least 80% of my collective front-end knowledge. (Personal aside: Chris and Wes, you two are my heroes and secret mentors.) Both Chris and Wes have a way of giving me the information that’s relevant to what I’m learning in a way that is fun and entertaining as well as straightforward and precise. They don\u2019t just present the code; they explain the why and history behind each topic. Wes is a little better at this, but the sheer number of videos Chris has created has kept me busy for years and will continue to into the future.<\/p>\n Simply writing code is another effective way for me to learn. I like to geek-out and setup development servers for various web languages and libraries and play around. I have learned a lot about MacOS and Linux (mostly Ubuntu) while also learning the basics of many web languages and libraries: PHP (for WordPress themes), Python, React, Vue and many others. I learned to embrace the command line and avoid GUIs<\/abbr> when possible. Nothing against GUIs<\/abbr>; I simply find the command line more precise (and just between you and me, way cooler to brag about to non-coders).<\/p>\n I still do use the command line \u2014 or at least I would if I still had a laptop or desktop to work on. I am actually writing this on an iPad Mini 2. However, I have found another great way to write and share code without the need to set up servers and complicated environments: CodePen<\/a>. I joined an early beta way back when and it was love at first sight. I can now write code, share it and get feedback all in one place (here\u2019s my profile<\/a>). Every time I get a fun idea or find a fun kata, I fire up Codepen and just start coding. No tricky dev setup. There are other apps that do this but CodePen is unique because of the social aspect and the ability to easily embed code samples on forums.<\/p>\n So, that\u2019s a little about me. What I want to get into is how I learn HTML and CSS because it\u2019s probably somewhat similar to yours, but different than how you might have gone about it.<\/p>\nHi folks, my name is Tim Smith<\/h3>\n
Breaking into HTML<\/h3>\n