I'm wondering if you struggle with procrastination at all? Or is it that you do what you love and therefore don't have a tendency to procrastinate?
Can you please elaborate on the "just do it" part? Do you not think about it at all, or do you have any specific thoughts to make yourself do it? Some people focus on the end result of finishing their project, some people create rewards for finishing and some people create habits that force them to get things done. I'm wondering what's your recipe.
Find a website that you like, and then build it from scratch. Well, of course, don't build too complex websites at the start. Something simple and something that caught your eye. I have had ALOT of help from this forum, books, videos, etc etc. But all of these knowledge are useless if I do not practice and try it out. Having frameworks like Bootstrap can help speed up the process as well. But of course, it's the PREFERRED choice to build a site from scratch. Once you have gained a good amount of skills, you can then decide if you want to use CSS frameworks. One of the best advice that I received is to trace every single bit of the codes to understand how the site is built. P.S Read Deathshadow's post to get started. He's genius.
Thanks for the comment, serialentre, I appreciate it. I think there's misunderstanding and maybe that's my fault that I didn't explain my intention in the beginning. I don't have a problem with procrastination. I'm researching this topic and am wondering whether people from webdesign world struggle with it. When I think about it, I can imagine both scenarios, so I thought the only way to get some data is to ask.
Coding can be pretty boring if you don't have target, vision, something similar. It can be passion if you have goal, vision, something similar. Try to find something that inspired you that pushed you forwards. For me, I go where people gathered and take note. This inspired me to create something that change the way people do. Funny, I don't take anything he adviced and do quite the opposite. For instance: -- he suggests not to use script if you have no business to use it: I throw a ton of script in whenever I can. It's awkward, expensive, and annoyed to request full page load to bring user a small piece information. I use script and user won't notice it at all. -- he told you not to use placeholder for label: I use, along with ten thousand other sites like facebook, twitter, blah blah blah. Mark Zuckerberg may have said hey, thank you for your advice dude, I just say no thanks. Reason: it's wasted too much space on mobile phone. -- he told you not to use Dreanweaver, I still use it whenever I want to borrow (steal) the design or script from other web sites. This will cut down time of your criminal act by one tenth. HEE HEE
Hi dude, I learnt alot from his explanation of HTML and CSS fundamentals. Can't comment on the other points that you mentioned because I, too, use scripts and placeholder for label
Thanks for the comment. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by "I go where people gathered and take note"?
I mean observe. Mostly I'm looking for idea, design to apply to (copy for) my project. @serialentre Deathshadow is right about Bootstrap and jQuery and many other things. I still don't agree with him about HTML5, mostly, though.
Personally my recipe for success is to get it done so I don't have to worry about it. Everybody likes to relax, and I don't allow myself to relax until I've worked as hard as I can that day. Don't make work your life, but make it a significant piece of it. It will become addicting.
Ok, I get it now. So you don't have a problem with procrastination... you deal with it by actively looking for ideas and being inspired by them? Everyone says things like "just do it" or "I just hop on it and finish it". Still there's a habit or internal dialogue that takes place - whether consciously or unconsciously. And I'm interested in seeing what's the habit, technique or internal dialogue that people have to make things work. Or not work. If that's something you could think about and share, that would be splendid!
I have domains that I have owned for four years or longer that I haven't gotten around to building sites for yet, and I have three or four in various stages of construction. Once I get enough content on one that it doesn't look undone, I put it up, and that stirs further development.
Why are you waiting to have enough of content? Is there a reason why you can't add content as you create/obtain it?
Getting started is often the hardest part -- and that's a common affliction with a lot of developers which is why they dive for the sleazy shortcuts to get over that "hump". Sadly many of those shortcuts also piss away accessibility -- jQueery, Bootcrap, Turdpress -- they all piss all over the markup, piss all over accessibility norms, and result in bloated slow train wrecks of websites NOBODY will want to use... meaning your content better be damned good or nobody WILL use it. That said, even with my ranting and raving about the evils of frameworks, I do have a base starting code I work from... though it's far simpler than what most people use. http://www.cutcodedown.com/for_others/template.html http://www.cutcodedown.com/for_others/screen.css I find my current process of site building helps prevent the problems with "starting" since I start with what people actually visit websites for -- THE CONTENT. If you care at all about the topic or have the slightest concept of what the site is going to be ABOUT, starting with the content is the natural first step. Take a flat text editor, and plug in your content or a reasonable facsimile of future content in a logical order as if HTML/CSS/JS never even existed. You then mark up that content semantically -- "semantic markup" being a sick euphemism for "using HTML properly". Basically say what things are, NOT what they look like -- and that extends to your classes and ID's. If you are using classes like "col-12" or "style6", you might as well go back to using HTML 3.2 and presentational markup. Of course, being the semantics stage you shouldn't be adding SPAN or DIV at this point since they are "semantically neutral". Then and only then do you create all your layoutS in CSS -- yes, PLURAL! Then and ONLY then do you do make the graphics to hang on the layout and content IF ANY. (thanks CSS3)... Then having a fully working page you enhance the functionality with scripting if desired. It's called progressive enhancement, and it leads to another important concept called graceful degradation. But in any case having an overall plan and process for site building laid out ahead of time removes the ambiguity of where to start, and therin a lot of the underlying tendency towards procrastination. Knowing what needs to be done in what order before you even take on a project means you've started before you've started. While wasting hundreds of K or even megabytes on scripting is SO much more efficient? Or as I keep saying "If you have enough HTML that loading ONE sub-page is an issue, you've done something wrong!" Though like many I think you misunderstand me on the topic; My motto is, "If you can't make it work without scripting FIRST, you have no business adding scripting to it" -- that does NOT mean you shouldn't consider adding scripting to it once it's working without it. You actually provided an excellent example of when to use it -- write it so it works without scripting first, but if all you want to do is update one tiny bit of data, feel free to add scripting to avoid that so long as it doesn't piss away the sites speed and efficiency. Scripting 101, enhance, don't supplant. That way when users don't have scripting or intentionally block it (and a LOT of people intentionally block it!) the site is still useful to visitors. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptsafe/oiigbmnaadbkfbmpbfijlflahbdbdgdf?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptblock/hcdjknjpbnhdoabbngpmfekaecnpajba?hl=en https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/ REAL Opera (as opposed to the pathetically crippled steaming pile known as ChrOpera) -> site preferences -> untick "scripting" as a per site setting... Though there ARE a lot of cases where people use "JS for nothing" which is far, far worse. Scripting to do CSS' job, scripting to supplant HTML's normal functionality, scripting where it doesn't gracefully degrade and is inaccessible rubbish -- that's when it's REALLY a problem. Sadly describing 99%+ of the idiotic bull people vomit up using jQuery. In other words, using HTML properly, following what even the HTML 5 specification says on it's usage... http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/forms.html#the-placeholder-attribute ... and I quote: ... and to further quote: Much less the plethora of supporting sources on the topic. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/form-design-placeholders/ http://www.webaxe.org/placeholder-attribute-is-not-a-label/ http://www.pardot.com/faqs/forms/placeholders-and-labels/ Much less worrying about some art-faygelah BS claim about mobile not based in reality is SO worth pissing away the accessibility needed by multiple different user agents and users. If putting the label above or next to the input is "taking up so much space" then you have a ****tarded design -- likely a result of not using HTML or CSS properly or idiotic halfwit scripttardery. That NNG article showing EXACTLY what they are FOR... but again so many people sleaze out HTML any old way in total ignorance of what HTML is FOR, what the tags are FOR, or how to use any of it properly -- and accessibility/usability ends up treated like toilet paper as a result. See the morons and fools who don't even use label tags, or fieldsets, or do halfwit BS like <td colspan="6"> instead of CAPTION or <td><b>Title</b></td> instead of using a TH... or who slap numbered headings into pages any-old way and to hell with logical document structure. The arguments against the ABUSE of placeholder are pretty much bulletproof, while the bullshit defenses for misusing/abusing it hold water like a steel sieve. I hear that's the best kind of sieve. ... and it's NOT like we're saying "don't use placeholder" -- it's about not using it improperly. Same as when we say "don't use tables for layout" we are NOT saying "don't ever use tables" -- no matter how many mouth-breathers seem to magically interpret it as such. ... because browsers don't have "save as" with type "complete"? Though usually most existing sites are such utter and complete ignorant halfwit bull, I wouldn't be trying to take code from them... and in terms of concepts/functionality I can usually code better -- or more importantly know when NOT to even add certain bits of pointless code that does nothing to do what's actually important -- delivering content to users. ... but to be fair, I've been writing software since 1977 -- so YMMV.
We're all still learning -- day you stop learning is the day the rest of the world leaves you behind. There's a reason I say "If you're not disgusted with your own code of just a year past, you're in the wrong business!" when it comes to all forms of coding be it markup, stylesheets, or real programming languages. More than three and a half decades after the first time I entered a program using 9 toggle switches and a momentary button, and I'm still learning. A LOT of people seem to think that programming is something that you learn once and then just do -- that attitude towards it is greatly flawed IMHO... and like a number of other flawed approaches dooms people to failure. Technology as a whole is a very fast moving always changing environment, and you have to be ready to change with it; though it's very sad when after several decades you see the same old garbage with a new slap of paint on it, hyped as the next great thing when it failed miserably before; See HTML5, aka "the new transitional" and bleeding edge of 1997 markup practices undoing the entire intent and purpose of 4 STRICT and pissing away the very logical document structure from professional writing on which HTML was originally based. Which is ALSO part of the learning... It is said that the future is always born in pain. The history of war is the history of pain. If we are wise what is born of that pain matures into the promise of a better world, because we learn that we can no longer afford the mistakes of the past. -- G'Kar. Learning from the mistakes of those who went before us... a very wise goal.
Oh yes, I agree on 100% as I've experienced it by myself. The difference between not knowing and knowing what to do is tremendous! I like the structure of your thinking about what has to happen. Where did you learn such structured system (maybe silly to ask this a programmer ? I mean... did you come to this system just by your experience or have had someone who told/recommend this to you?