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by davewasthere 3814 days ago
Completely this.

If I teleported here from the 90s, first thing I'd need to wrap my head around is how HTML and CSS have changed. I'd be learning a responsive framework (or even hand-rolling it, so you know how it works) like bootstrap. And doing a very basic website.

And if html5 & responsive css aren't enough to wrap your head around at once, I'd create a github account, and start with github pages. That'll let you use the static site generator Jekyll. The combination of all three will do pretty much all you need for 90% of the sites out there.

After that, then I'd look at a stack that lets you have some degree of interactivity and persistence in order to build web apps.... But for now, clean responsive websites would be the way forward.
2 comments
robeastham 3814 days ago
Take a look at Susy for layout, bit more flexible than Bootstrap:

https://github.com/oddbird/susy

Also for static site generators take a look at:

https://middlemanapp.com/ (Ruby) http://gohugo.io/ (Go) https://github.com/getpelican/pelican (Python)

When you need to go beyond static sites and take a look at the web frameworks - Ruby on Rails is the obvious one, but I reckon that Meteor (https://www.meteor.com/) could be a good bet now that it has matured. Might save you a lot of time when compared to RoR for certain tasks.

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dandanisaur 3814 days ago
Imo I'd hold off on susy. Bootstrap is a great start for a beginner abs it's used in a ton of environments.
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excalq 3814 days ago
I took several years away from the front-end to focus on Backend and DevOps, only recently re-upping my front-end-fu. Since I knew CSS 2.0, I found Bootstrap quite easy to pick up and be productive with in about a day, not previously knowing CSS griding. And I found myself saying over again, holy shit where was this back in "my day"!
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subpixel 3814 days ago
Agreed. Also, avoid every other tool that is potentially 'next-gen' compared to what provides the functionality you need. For someone with the goal of publishing web sites, Bootstrap css and js will get you pretty much all the way. Don't worry about moving beyond them until you actually feel you have to.
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gelatocar 3814 days ago
Staying out of silos and rabbit holes would probably mean avoiding bootstrap, github and the like. Totally agree on building clean, responsive sites though.
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