3 ms·

> Don't waste time reading a book Somewhere on the continuum between "learn by doing" and "learn by studying", the truth lies. I mostly learned CSS by happens

> Don't waste time reading a book Somewhere on the continuum between "learn by doing" and "learn by studying", the truth lies. I mostly learned CSS by happenstance "doing" and have been able to do a fair bit, but I didn't really understand selectors until I went through a book on CSS.

mattlondon 5y ago
There is a good MDN page on CSS selectors that takes about 5 minutes to read. Sorry you wasted time reading a whole book! You can't get that time back.
- rectang 5y ago
  > There is a good MDN page on CSS selectors that takes about 5 minutes to read. I've read that page! In fact I reviewed it while reading the book, along with many other MDN pages. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/Building_blocks/Selectors https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/Building_... That page is actually part of an MDN module, which is sort of like a book. I actually considered going through that MDN module methodically, but ultimately chose a book I thought was more suitable for my needs. For me, developing a sense of mastery over selectors meant studying all their variations and practicing with all of them. I also had to understand that "selectors" were a thing in the first place — a coherent and scope-limited topic that I could study and master. I didn't really get that from all of my CSS practice — the book gave me an agenda I wasn't able to develop on my own. > Sorry you wasted time reading a whole book! You can't get that time back. It's not like it was an entire book on selectors. I don't need that time back — it was productive, and I learned a lot about many aspects of CSS. Of course, it would have been less productive if I had not already accumulated a lot of knowledge via the "learn by doing" method. I'm certainly not opposed to that... it's jarring to see someone so adamantly opposed to books. (For the curious, the book was Architecting CSS by Martine and Michael Dowden. It's not really a beginner book. I chose it because I needed to understand how to organize CSS in large projects to get more predictable behavior and reduce time spent on maintenance and debugging).

mattlondon 5y ago

There is a good MDN page on CSS selectors that takes about 5 minutes to read. Sorry you wasted time reading a whole book! You can't get that time back.

rectang 5y ago
> There is a good MDN page on CSS selectors that takes about 5 minutes to read. I've read that page! In fact I reviewed it while reading the book, along with many other MDN pages. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/Building_blocks/Selectors https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/Building_... That page is actually part of an MDN module, which is sort of like a book. I actually considered going through that MDN module methodically, but ultimately chose a book I thought was more suitable for my needs. For me, developing a sense of mastery over selectors meant studying all their variations and practicing with all of them. I also had to understand that "selectors" were a thing in the first place — a coherent and scope-limited topic that I could study and master. I didn't really get that from all of my CSS practice — the book gave me an agenda I wasn't able to develop on my own. > Sorry you wasted time reading a whole book! You can't get that time back. It's not like it was an entire book on selectors. I don't need that time back — it was productive, and I learned a lot about many aspects of CSS. Of course, it would have been less productive if I had not already accumulated a lot of knowledge via the "learn by doing" method. I'm certainly not opposed to that... it's jarring to see someone so adamantly opposed to books. (For the curious, the book was Architecting CSS by Martine and Michael Dowden. It's not really a beginner book. I chose it because I needed to understand how to organize CSS in large projects to get more predictable behavior and reduce time spent on maintenance and debugging).