Instructing a Masterpiece

22 Feb 2024

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Learning HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap 5

To me, learning the syntax of HTML, CSS, and as an extension, Bootstrap 5, felt like having to start everything back from scratch. I’m still not confident in my understanding of these “Markup Languages” (which is also a term I’ve just found out about!) due to my inability to create webpages that mimic what I see in my head. I assume it’s like learning how to draw, where little by little you begin to remember the techniques required for things to look “good”, be it in proportions or colors, through muscle memory gained from repetition or trial-and-error. Right now I’m still practicing the latter, with an emphasis on error. But on second thought, it’s more like learning how to instruct a machine that draws for you, in which case, I need to start giving better instructions.

..But why learn Bootstrap 5?

From what I’ve seen from Bootstrap 5, much more of its syntax seems to bridge the gap between machine and human. I’ve noticed there being several lines of hyphenated text in my code that amounts to “please-format-it-like-this”. The downside is, at least for me, these lines must be memorized to a T for you to get any use out of them. And that means looking through documentation for those specific lines again and again until it becomes your second tongue. Watching our professors work through their code is borderline magic, as their experience with said lines allows them to type it out on the spot while reciting it verbally, making it seem like they’re talking to the computer directly and bending it to their will, which I suppose programming is.