Help please!
I met a textile artist this week who wants to learn creative code for the web. She’s interested in storytelling, rich media, easter eggs, pop ups, hidden content, and using 3d objects to give a sense of the physicality of her work.
What easy, clear tutorials would you point an ambitious beginner at, these days?
Which is the best basic creative Html/Css/js online course?
What simple tools / libraries might help her with next steps?
More particular questions about this scenario…
- what’s the current best practice for what, back in the day, would have been imagemaps? Is it some kind of canvas / Svg combo?
- is getting going with an ssg like #11ty a good fit?
- node.js, p5js, three.js… where is the interesting action at the mo?
Are there any niche sitebuilding tools that might help?
And who is doing good work with the weird web at the moment?
(Five years away = lifetime.)
I feel a bit dirty saying it but... w3schools.com and MDN (for getting deeper) are a great combo to go from beginner to expert, if she wants to avoid formal courses and quickly learn as she does. She can learn there the basics, and then jump to a library. Or not use any, if she doesn't need them.
About libraries: depends totally on what exactly she wants to do. There are many great general purpose libraries (like Vue, React), but if she wants to make games she should use a game library (like Crafty, or Godot), if she wants to make 2D visualizations she probably should use a 2D graphics library, same for 3D (Babylon, Aframe, Three.js), for telling stories Twine is really great... That kind of choice is very personal, and there are thousands of options.
@jgg I think I’m still carrying the overheard grumbles of many devs about w3c schools :) You’re right - it’s really useful for scaffolding the ‘learning the next bit’. Will add.
I’ve pointed her at https://grasshopper.app/ for the cute mascot (It moves in to D3.Js!) and https://www.theodinproject.com as it covers the basics like How-to-Git and seems well structured.
It’s so interesting trying to build a curriculum for someone - I learned from Webmonkey Kids back in the day - times change!