HTML vs. CSS

C

chatterbox

New member
I can do basic HTML coding (still looking things up sometimes) and put together a simple site by hand. Is CSS harder to learn to work with than HTML? It seems to be easier to work with since you only have to change once to affect the whole site but is there a big learning curve to creating your own?
 
There can be - it all depends. If you have a good knowledge of document structure, then half your work will be done for you: you're already used to putting headings in H* tags, for example. If you don't find it easy to think structurally, you might have a slightly harder time of it.

CSS is a pretty powerful tool. It's a bit like Photoshop: you may be really good at using 10-290% of all of its features, but there are always extra things to learn. That's both the joy and the curse :D
 
If you know HTML than CSS is not that much of a learning curve than when you learned about tables in HTML. Structure wise, CSS is a must learn in web development, especially if your going to keep up with newer flavours like XHTML.

Beyond that everything else is backend scripting and programming (ie: php, asp, etc) and learning this much is really the framework for anything else you want to do later.
 
Using CSS with web-file types i.e HTML & XHTML is great. It reduces web-loading type if you are using gradients, and similar images (like a logo) on multiple pages.

CSS is straight forward, onces you've done it a few times it becomes very easy.
 
Most of my websites, if not all of my websites use CSS and XHTML. I am trying to do away with HTML to be honest as it's not as modern as CSS and XHTML. Honestly, I haven't dug too terribly deep into CSS yet, however it doesn't seem that there is too much of a difference to make it too terribly hard to learn. It is definitely much cleaner and provides a better structure to work with.
 
I think that html is the best way to start, but at the same time CSS is always better if you are really looking your web site would customm made.
 
CSS is great, but can be a huge pain in the rear. Things that seem so simple in HTML, and things that work across the board with HTML, you'll find is no the case when it comes to CSS.

CSS allows some flexibility, but you'll find that aligning things for example in HTML, are aligned the way you want them to be (if you've used validated standard html)....while aligning something in CSS, will align it properly in IE, and break in FF, or vice versa, which you then have to find CSS hacks for, etc.

For now, stick with HTML and learn it well. Then when you're ready to advance into the frustration of CSS....go for it. :D
 
Thanks for the responses

Sounds like I might want to get better with HTML first and then venture into CSS. I definitely don't think "structurally" enough to make the transition fairly painless, from what I'm reading from you all. I guess I'll stick to buying unique WP themes for now until I'm better at HTML.
 
well I guess at least my comment was a little biased and a double edge sword as well.

I would never suggest holding yourself back from learning something....if you really wanna learn it.

However, if you don't feel ready for it, then absolutely take your time and do things in order.
 
I vastly prefer CSS+HTML to plain HTML and tables-based layouts. Then again, I learned - and started fiddling with - CSS when the spec was first published in 1998. I had learned HTML in 1994, so didn't have years of previous habits I had to unlearn.

Try learning the basics of CSS and controlling styles via stylesheets rather than egregious use of the font tag. Slowly ease into using DIVs for smaller internal components. You may never ever get away from tables layouts completely - in one case, I needed to use that to achieve the height-effect that I wanted - but you'll also be better poised to take advantage of Ajax and DHTML libraries.
 
This is an interesting topic for me as I had a web development class for college about 5 years ago and the instructor said that CSS's weren't used that often and would probably be gone in a couple of years. I guess that shows why he is teaching and not doing. It seems like that are a powerful tool that I need to look into using. I have done most of my programming in HTML through Notepad. I just like to look at the code so I can see what it is doing and what is happening instead of doing things in other software and saving as HTML. I'll be looking into CSS a bit more in the future for sure.

Thanks
Chris
 
CSS is not an alternative to HTML. CSS is used with html to create great website. Using css you may be able to omit using to tables and things like that. CSS is an add on and is very easy to learn.
 
If this makes sense at all (it didn't to me at first so don't worry), skip HTML and go to XHTML. there's more coding to it, it's a more powerful tool than HTML, and with CSS, both XHTML and CSS they can work together.

That's how I was taught, but that was about a year or two ago so it's been quite a while ago. I don't know what kids do now anymore as I haven't been in school for a good two or three years (I'm 20 now)
 
I have seen very few straight, narrow and clean HTML only sites. I know some people tend to try and mix things up or do flat out CSS only but sometimes it looks choppy like. That might not be the best word for it, but it looks, ummmm messy like I think is where I am going with it?
 
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