Suggested Reading?

Hello Everyone,
I’m starting to teach myself how to code. I would like to obtain a greater understanding of HTML, Python, C++. Aside from taking these courses, what books would you recommend to beginners for a specific language?
I would also appreciate any other important tips or knowledge they can share.

I don’t have a specific book to recommend but I would recommend that you concentrate on just one thing at a time. HTML (or web development in general), python, and c++ don’t have a lot in common and you normally wouldn’t use them together. There is nothing wrong learning multiple languages. But when you are just starting out I would stick to one.

What is your ultimate goal?

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I agree that I should focus on one language, which is what I’m planning on doing. To be completely honest, I am unsure of what languages I want to learn. That’s why I am planning on learning more than one language. As of right now, I’m leaning more towards becoming a front end developer, hence why I’m focusing on HTML firsts. This will allow me to get a feel of what a programming job will require. Do you have any recommendations? In terms of possible career paths.

For Python I recommend “Fluent Python” by Luciano Ramalho.

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HTML, CSS and JavaScript are the 3 pillars that make up the entire web (in regards to the front-end).

HTML is the structure
CSS is the styling
JavaScript is the engine that makes HTML and CSS dynamic.

Not all three are created equal. HTML by itself can handle a few use-cases, CSS by itself is useless without HTML, but together you can have solid static sites that leverage some built-in functionality to HTML for some use-cases, such as basic forms.

However JavaScript is the programming language that allows you to really leverage the web. Its also where you’ll learn how to program, and skills that can carry over into other situations outside of the browser.

Finally, today the web is focused primarily on JavaScript with HTML and CSS being more “by-products” that are managed by JavaScript. With frameworks like React allowing you to more or less write only JavaScript with some HTML and CSS integrated.

If you like the idea of being a web developer, being able to leverage online web resources should be a start. Unlike other domains, the web changes very often. Because of that web based resources that can be updated continually as things change are your best bet. Books/guides/tutorials can get outdated quickly if they aren’t easy to update. So raw documentation/text-based-guides are your best bet.

I highly recommend mdn as its continually updated and provides large amounts of content you can read.

For example here’s its article on HTML:

from there you can easily “fall down the rabbit hole” and learn a whole bunch of things.

Good luck, keep building, keep learning :+1:

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