So i went through the HTML,CSS and JavaScript maps got through all of them and thought I understood them well enough however when I go to start my tribute page I basically blanked out. Do you guys memorize all this before you did the tribute page or do you have any advice to get me on the right path? I thought I was doing fine getting through the activities but drawing a blank kind of scared me. Any advice would help. Thank you!
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Donāt stress too much about it. I suggest keeping devdocs handy. If you start typing what you remember into the search box, it will narrow your choices down. The more you engage the material, the more it will stick, but frankly no one memorizes everything. I still have to look things up with every project, which is why I have devdocs set as a pinned tab. Donāt be afraid to go back to the challenges or previous projects (once you have them) to jog your memory.
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Thank you both for your responses and your confidence. I will apply it and go from there 
Yep I am exactly at the same spotā¦ I am glad to see I am not alone in this process.
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Good advice.
A bit like golf!!!
What are your thoughts on whether or not to use bootstrap when we are just learning the basics off html and css?
I have used it to enable a smooth scroll plugin but tried to avoid it for page-layout so I can get a core foundation.
I think life would be much easier if I did use the bootstrap layout system but hear conflicting adviceā¦
So I did my first web page ever and I am pretty sure I have a long road ahead of me.
Here is my first shot at the tribute page. Basically I was staring at it blankly when I decided to just start writing.
1st tribute page
It was not looking anything like the example so I feel like I need to start over again. However I have cheated and looked at the format of the example and so my question is, how am I supposed to google div class=ājumbotronā when I am not even aware of what this is?
Going back over the material up this point is not going to tell me about jumbotron. Should I try classes at codeacademy or something to better understand putting together the format/layout of a webpage and make it look better than this first attempt?
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Thanks! I have to admit that I made myself chuckle with the page.
So I am having fun with it and not letting it get frustrating yet. Of course this section of the course suggests 50 hours and I am no where near that time spent yet.
I will peruse bootstrap components with my bowl of cottage cheese and peaches, thanks again.
Makes sense sir. Thanks for the reply
I felt just like you did when Iām given something to create using a text editor. What helped me for me is actually not starting with a blank slate. Keep the following code somewhere for every project you do.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
There is no harm in starting with this, rather than an entire blank slate. As you create more pages, add to it so that eventually you will have a nice template to easily drop your ideas in. I highly doubt someone will be standing behind you saying, āA-HA you are cheating!ā Hope that helps.
This is great! Thank you once again
there are a few shortcuts in codepenā¦ for example if you type doc and hit tab in the html sectionā¦ you will automatically get the followingā¦
html
head
meta charset=āUTF-8ā /
title>Document</title
/head
body
i find that it helps a lot. there are other shortcuts as well
another way to learn is to āstealā someone elseās work. most people hate to admit it. but thereās not much original work these days. everything is always based on something else.
but thatās the beauty of it. thatās the very foundation of the open source movement. you can āForkā someone elseās code, add something to it, give your magic touch, and make something better out of it.
just because the instruction says donāt look at the example code. doesnāt mean u have to listen to it 
seriously, you can really learn a lot by seeing someone elseās code. comb thru it line by line. break it apart. get a feel on how they did it. learn from it.
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aye sir. couldnāt agree more. and yes, they shouldāve change the instruction on that part.
thereās a lot more to it. i think theyāre using an implementation of Emmet. also a really useful thing to have in your dev toolbox. it allows you to type HTML tags and CSS properties really fast.
hereās the full Emmet cheat sheet. most of it should work in Codepen.
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I agree with some of the feedback here. Personally, I can study all day long by reading code but until I start using it and breaking something just to fix it, will i then start learning. You can waste a lot of time by learning an not doing. Everyone is different though, just keep cutting at it and you will get it.
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I think at the extreme end, youāre right. Never looking at the source code under any circumstances is a bad instruction, because the transparency of web-pages, at least from the front end view, is kinda what makes the whole industry tick along and keep improving. Web pages are wonderful in that they reveal their secrets willingly with a little āview sourceā investigation, and good ideas spread as a result.
I think the principle of reverse engineering something based on what you know or are able to look up is a sound principle to encourage and emphasise to begin with, since that really gets people solving problems.
If you just keep banging your head against a wall, though, looking at how other people have solved your problem is the only sane way to proceed. Anything else is certifiable madness.
Very useful post! I think Iām gonna have to immediately break rule #1 with this. Iāve done well with the lessons, but being thrown into something like this is leaving me feeling like I have no idea how to even start. Feels like: lesson #1 hammer a nail, lesson #2 screw in a screw, lesson #3 measure a board, lesson #4 cut a board. Great, youāve got it! Now for your first project ever, show me how to build a houseā¦
VERY intimidating, but Iāll do my best. Thanks for the advice