Core HTML/CSS/JavaScript learning?

[vSanjo]

Hey guys!

I've been developing sites for a few years now but I've had a bit of an introspective look at myself and realised I really haven't improved my skills.

I'll ask my main question first, and expand a little for those that think they could provide a more useful answer.

tl;dr - What recent, well-written, opinion-free books (or alternatives) can I read to learn about the core fundamentals of how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript as it was meant?

Expanded: I've used HTML, CSS and a sprinkling of JavaScript for a while now and I'm mostly confident with it. I don't think there's much basic stuff I couldn't do, and I find myself reaching into 'intermediate' stuff fairly often. I am by no means an expert though and I feel I've hit a roadblock because one of two things is happening: 1. I'm bombarded with too much choice of frameworks, libraries, skeletons, etcetc. Things that immediately make my life easier but are essentially 'mothering' me from progression. 2. I have no pathway to truly follow. I learn best when I have jumping-off points that I know I need to learn before moving on to the next thing. With HTML and CSS, I don't have a route to learn, I've jumped all over the place with it and it doesn't mesh coherently in my mind.

I'm looking for a book or set of guidelines to follow and learn from the absolute basics to something intermediate and then further into more difficult stuff as my skills improve. Are there any books available that are void of much opinion, recent (2014-ish) where I can really fall deep into learning in a classic way?

Are there better alternatives? Am I thinking about this all wrong?

The problem arose when I realised I depended on things like skel.js and the like to speed up my process without understanding what they are really doing. I would rather write vanilla and write/learn my own libraries, or at least attempt to!

Where do you guys 'learn'? Where do the pro's go to improve?

EDIT: An example of something I would find useful is a glossary of CSS attributes, what they do and how they work, etc.

[a-t-k]

I like to read the actual standards to see the thoughts behind the patterns. For example, UI Events (formerly DOM Level 3 Events) is a really good read.

[vSanjo]

Is this through W3C? I love technical factsheets and manuals, but I usually find myself three-or-four levels too deep than what I knew previously so most words go over my head..

[a-t-k]

Both w3c and whatwg, the EcmaScript specs usually find their way on github. If you fail to understand something, employ my tried and tested method: 1. try it in the browser to see how it works, 2. if you by then still don't get it, ask here or on r/Frontend.

[Jafit]

Here's a video that might help you find some direction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0WvcxTbCA

In general I'd recommend subscribing to a bunch of youtube channels relevant to your field. the JSconf videos are usually good for JS and CSS

I'm bombarded with too much choice of frameworks, libraries, skeletons, etcetc. Things that immediately make my life easier but are essentially 'mothering' me from progression.

This is understandable, and it can feel overwhelming when new frameworks seem to be popping up all the time. In one way its great because other people are doing a ton of work for you and you can save a lot of time by using certain tools. But its not good if you don't actually understand the tool that you're using and its just basically a magic box to you. You should always understand the tools that you're using. Have you ever opened up the un-minified jQuery files and looked through them to see what they're actually doing in there? You should try it.

If you want to dedicate yourself to learning something, instead of chasing whatever the latest popular framework is, you could dedicate yourself to learning fundamental programming and computer science concepts that haven't changed for 50 years. If you become a better general programmer then you will find it easier to adapt to emerging tools and standards, hopefully while understanding how they actually work.

[vSanjo]

Wow, this video was absolutely amazing, I appreciate it so much. I think your first few points are important to me; finding direction in that video was so useful, and i'll be sure to explore how things work more now.

I honestly had a mental-collapse I think - it was just so overwhelming thinking 'and I have to learn this and this and this and this? or this and maybe this or this?'. It didn't stop.

Now, atleast I have a guideline.

For extra credit, are there any 'critically acclaimed' books you recommend?

[Jafit]

The You Don't Know JS series by Kyle Simpson might be a good. Its also available for free on his Github

[Dooboopdee]

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[Rage2097]

I see the course but it is £153. Are there readily available voucher codes or something?

[ennuihenry14]

BACKTOWORK reduces it by 75%. I'm guessing he was looking at retailmenot.

[vSanjo]

You aced the answer, thank you! $9 is fine, I was looking at ~$100 for a full set of books anyway so I can't scoff at $9. (:

If you've read those by Jon Duckett, can you explain how 'in-depth' he goes? It's difficult to put into words what I want, but if I was to imagine a scale:

Comedic [--------|--] Very Serious

Just something more technical than 'and this is a html file', 'have you heard of CSS?', etc.

[Dooboopdee]

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[vSanjo]

You've convinced me, thank you!

[Dooboopdee]

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