Basic HTML Tutorials

13 January 2009 · Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

I asked on Twitter for recommendations for basic, online HTML tutorials for a new co-worker. Here’s the result.

@amandarust asked me to summarize the answers to my query. Of course, to do that takes more than the 140 characters allowed by Twitter, so I’ll do it here.

I got a good range of responses, most of which I had seen before. After looking through them, I am struck by the poor quality. It seems you can find excellent tutorials on most any advanced topic, but a well done basic intro to HTML is really hard to find.

• HTML Dog — suggested by @andyharris, @AnneBB, @natobasso
• W3Schools — suggested by @kashaziz, @rapaul
• HTMLHelp.com — suggested by @easton
• NETTUTS — suggested by @ksuyin
• Sitepoint’s HTML Reference — suggested by @InkodeR
• LVS Online & EclecticAcademy — suggested by @zoonini

Of these, I sent my co-worker to W3Schools. I wasn’t particularly impressed with any of them, most for the production qualities, but some for the fact they started users right out having to look at complex DOCTYPE declarations. NETTUTS looks like a great resource, but only offers more advanced tutorials.

W3Schools keeps things relatively simple to start off and includes demos where you can try out tags, click a button, and see the result. Again, it’s not pretty, but at least someone put some thought into how to serve folks whose learning style includes needing to solidify concepts by mucking with things.

Surely there is something out there that caters to total beginners, but is high quality. Share it in the comments if you know of a site that does this better!

Update: A late entry from Richard Paul is Opera’s Web Standards Curriculum (WSC). Created in association with the Yahoo! Developer Network, this looks like an excellent set of guided resources for everyone from the complete beginner to the seasoned professional. Thanks, Richard!