HTML Self Closing Tags: Environment Tutorial with Stone River eLearning
In this blog post, we will be discussing about good coding practices in HTML and how to move forward during your initial days of learning HTML. As we can realize from the video tutorials and the blog posts, HTML tags form the basic and most fundamental step of hyper text markup language. Just like any other programming language, one gets better at HTML after nurturing his/her coding skills through regular practice. However; since, through HTML you can witness your code step by step resulting into web pages, it is important to build your confidence and interest by witnessing your efforts reaping fruits on the web browser.
Good Practices for learning HTML as a beginner:
1. Do not be lazy
- The first and the most important rule of coding is to be persistent with your work. A lot of people start on the path of web designing and start with HTML, but soon become lazy and leave it in between. If you aspire to be a good web designer and if you are really determined to attain your goals, the first roadblock that you will face is your laziness and once you have crossed that, half the battle is already won.
2. Control + C is your biggest enemy
- Ctrl + C is, and probably has been your most loyal friend since you were in school, however; it is time to bid good bye to that loyal friend. If not a permanent goodbye, a temporary exile is beneficial for both parties (actually its only beneficial for you, the other party is non-existent anyways). The more you write the more you learn. Remember, the time when as a kid we were given the lesson of learning by writing things down? Well, it is time we scroll back in the memory lane and revisit that lesson. The only difference is, now you have to write code as an HTML document, and it is much more interesting than primary school lessons.
3. Have a look at your code
- As a beginner in HTML, we all have this habit of blazing towards the web browser and refreshing the page to see the results of the changes in code that we have made. Even though it is not a bad habit as it saves time, but if you have just started to learn HTML, it is better to look at your code and check for possible errors before you check the results on the browser window. Not only will it help you avoiding similar mistakes in future, but a correct result on the browser window is a far more encouraging sign than writing the HTML code before time.
4. Avoid shortcuts
- As explained in the video tutorial, though features in the text editors features like auto complete which are used to create the environment for your HTML document is a great utility when you have gained experience as a programmer; as a beginner, it is always a better option to write the opening and the closing tag by yourself.
5. Do it the hard way
- It is always better to do it the hard way to ensure that when the hard times come, you are better prepared to deal with them. Paying attention to the smallest details is something that people often miss in a language like HTML, but the truth is, it is these small details that separate a good coder from an ordinary one. Now it is your choice, are you satisfied with a normal coder tag, or are you willing to put in a little extra to gain a lot more in return.
As explained in the video, you can turn on/off the auto complete feature from your text editor by following the steps mentioned below:
- Go to the PREFERENCES menu
- Select code intelligence from the list of menus.
- Now you can select/deselect the automatically insert end tag option as per your choice. However; we recommend not selecting it until you are familiar and comfortable with HTML.