Overheard a guy at a coffee shop say 'HTML is dead' and I almost choked on my latte

I was grabbing a cold brew near my place in Portland last Tuesday, and some dude was loudly telling his friend that learning HTML is a waste of time because everything is drag-and-drop now. I wanted to jump in but I just sat there fuming (okay, sipping quietly). For real though, I think that's terrible advice for beginners. If you don't understand basic tags like

or , how are you supposed to fix anything when the visual builder breaks? I spent my first 3 months just making ugly web pages with pure HTML and CSS, and it helped me so much when I moved to JavaScript later. Has anyone else run into people telling new coders to skip the fundamentals like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy_sanchez5d ago

Oh come on, you really think spending months just on HTML and CSS is the best use of time? If someone's goal is to build actual websites and get a job, they should jump straight into a framework like React or Vue. You can pick up the basics of divs and links in a weekend, but the stuff that pays the bills is components, state management, and responsive layouts. I've seen beginners waste a year on raw HTML only to realize the job market wants Tailwind and built-in component libraries. The drag-and-drop builders are getting so good now that even small agencies use them for client work. Telling people to start with the "fundamentals" is like telling a chef to spend six months learning how to sharpen knives before they cook an egg.

jesse2905d ago

You actually changed my mind with that chef analogy, I used to think the opposite.