So, I’d love to start my own small Internet blog, and I want to make it without any extra software, just plain HTML+CSS, maybe some PHP for convenience.
I have near-zero experience in programming (yes I know HTML is not programming language, but you get the point), and I just finished a wonderful starting guide, HTML For People. I loved it a lot, but it only covers the absolute basics, and I’d love to have a deeper dive.
Are there any HTML, CSS, PHP guides that are free, text-based (so, not YouTube videos), and give more than the very basics? Would love to hear your recommendations!
MDN has a really good tutorial: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development/Core
I also want to throw in that a “static site generator” would probably be up your alley.
It is additional software, but it just gives you HTML+CSS in the end, so you can still upload to NeoCities or the like. It would effectively replace PHP for your use-case.
Knowing some HTML and CSS, and the rest of what you learned in that tutorial, is still helpful, as you may want to customize your template, but for the most part you can just write your blog posts in Markdown and it’ll generate the HTML with navigation links for you.
Of course, a static site generator is still an additional layer of complexity. For learning how HTML and such work, it’s definitely valid to plug everything together yourself. 🙂
Oh, nice! I knew a bit about MDN, but didn’t know they actually provide a course. Thanks!
Yeah, the plan for now is to learn how it all works, and do it fully manually. Maybe then I’ll get scared of the complexity of what I want to do and will end up using a generator for the final thing, but for now, my goal and idea is to not rely on anything aside from the basic building blocks of the Internet. It’s both a way to study and kind of a digital independence thing. I want to make sure that, regardless of what tools can go down, I’ll still be able to keep it going as usual and skilled enough to modify it as needed. I want something that will work and adapt to my (fairly basic) needs pretty much forever.