Robert Chen – My First Steps With HTML CSS and… Flexbox

Dive: Coder - HTML/CSS
Description: Knows how to code using HTML/CSS
Level: Level 1
Level Requirements: Can code in HTML/CSS at a basic level
Certified On: Mar 31, 2020

Editor’s Note: On all dive certifications, we try to edit the writing as little as possible to preserve authenticity, personality, and writing style. We typically fix spelling errors, but minimally modify grammar and sentence structure (just enough to ensure readability).

Name: Robert Chen Break Diving Level: Level 1 Number of Certified Dives: 5 From: United States In: United States

1. When and Why Did You Decide to Pursue This Dive At This Level? What was your inspiration and motivation?

I started this dive when I was in eighth grade. I wanted to start making websites and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) & CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the meat and bones of websites. I decided to learn HTML & CSS at the same time as I decided to start pursuing Javascript. To be honest, those three languages are almost like a package deal!

2. How Long Did It Take For You To Accomplish This Dive At This Level From The Day You Decided To Pursue It, And Why Did It Take That Long?

HTML is one of the easier languages to learn. It took me around a week to have a basic understanding of how it works. A lot of things are very intuitive and can be easily picked up by a beginner. Compared to other languages, the XML design, (“<html></html”, “<body></body”) is a lot easier to pick up. CSS is also pretty easy to understand, but only once you get the hang of it. Becoming comfortable with CSS took me much longer.

3. What Was The Hardest Part About Achieving This Particular Dive Level?

There are a lot of things to memorize with CSS. For example, I still don’t fully remember all of the different possible CSS modifiers, and maybe I never will. For example: float, text-align, flex, the list just goes on and on. Sometimes I find myself forgetting these and having to play around in the Chrome development console in order to get the CSS to work properly.

4. What Was The Easiest Part About Achieving This Particular Dive Level?

Learning the basics of HTML and CSS is relatively easy. There are a lot of online resources for anybody to learn from. If you have any question, it’s really easy to simply go online and look for the answer.

5. What Is Your Advice For Someone Who Is Pursuing This Dive And Level?

Have fun. Making websites is one of the most fun things to do for me. I really enjoy doing it in my spare time and it makes coding a lot more enjoyable. I think that one of the most important things in life is to do things that you enjoy. Only then can you truly improve.

6. What Are Some Of The Best Resources You Recommend to Those Pursuing This Dive At This Level, And Why Do You Recommend Them? Please Include Relevant Weblinks, If Applicable.

Check out these resources to help you out:

Resource 1: Stack Overflow - Stack Overflow provides an invaluable question and answer resource for coders of all levels, for all coding languages.

Resource 2: Break Diving - A better (and more friendly) resource for more beginner / intermediate questions is Break Diving.

Resource 3: W3Schools - They have a wide range of tutorials.

Resource 4: -

Resource 5: -

7. Tell Us A Story Of One Of Your Adventures While Pursuing This Dive (At This Level).

Here’s a story about learning how to use the CSS attribute “flex”.

Flex is one of the more modern features. It has only recently been added to browsers in the last couple of years. It’s also of the more powerful features. It can be very useful when aligning objects.

However, I just couldn’t understand how flex worked for some reason. I read up on a lot of online tutorials, trying to figure out how flex worked, but none of the tutorials made any sense. It was very frustrating because I really wanted to learn and use this powerful new feature.

One day, though, I came across something called “Flexbox Froggy”. This free online game made it both fun and easy to learn how flex worked. Unlike many of the other tutorials that are purely text-based, this one was interactive, and played like a game. And it worked for me! You can find the tutorial at https://flexboxfroggy.com.

In summary, I learned flexbox by playing an online game!

8. What Evidence Did You Submit to Prove You Met the Requirements for This Dive and Level?

I work on the Break Diving coding team, and helped build many of the front-end features on the site. The staff at Break Diving all verify my HTML and CSS coding abilities.

9. Will You Be Pursuing The Next Level For This Dive? If Yes, Why? If Not, Why Not?

Yes I will continue to learn HTML/CSS, and look forward to submitting for Level 2 soon!

10. What is the Break Diver's Creed?

No Rules. No Excuses. No Regrets.

Certificate photo:

And having made this post, and provided adequate evidence to the dive committee, Robert Chen is now hereby certified by Break Diving, Inc. as: Coder - HTML/CSS - Level 1. Congratulations ! Thank you for being an inspiration to others!

Certificate number: 31

The author above wrote this WYSEguidance post as one of the certification requirements to become certified by Break Diving, Inc. for a dive completed. Would you also like to find greater success, happiness, and friendship, and make genuine supportive connections with others around the world pursuing your same dreams? Come join us at Break Diving and soon your story will be the next one you read about on this site!

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