Just the basics

Some textbooks try to do too much. They rush through a lot of stuff. They end up being “an inch deep and a mile wide.”

CoreDogs isn’t like that. It just hits the core ideas of a handful of technologies. It gives you a chance to really learn about the core of the Web.

Lots of exercises

The only way you learn about Web stuff is to do it. There are lots of exercises in CoreDogs.

As you work on exercises, you’ll put your solutions into CoreDogs. Or their URLs, at least. You’ll end up with a portfolio of your work. You can even share parts of the portfolio with other people. You can learn more about your exercise portfolio.

Advice: The exercises do two things for you.

First, they help you learn. In fact, you won’t learn much unless you do them.

Second, the exercises help you test your knowledge. If you can’t do the exercises without looking at the answers, you don’t understand well enough. Read the lessons again. Do more exercises. Ask for help.

Do the exercises. You’re wasting your learning time if you don’t.

Learning pace

CoreDogs doesn’t throw a lot of new concepts at you all at once. It’s paced more slowly, so you have time to do exercises.

Plain language

CoreDogs is easy to read.

Money stuff

You’ll need software. Everything you’ll need is free. Yay! CoreDogs tells you where to grab it.

You’ll need a Web hosting account. This may not be free, depending on what your college offers. But it’s cheap. You can get decent hosting for less than $10 USD per month. More on that later.

Advice: Most students don’t have a lot of money. You will be tempted to skip the hosting. Don’t. It’s the best investment you can make in your Web future. There’s a lesson on how to buy Web hosting.

Isn’t your Web future worth the price of a cheap pizza once a month?

Some CoreDogs students tried free hosting services. It didn’t work out too well. The services put ads on their pages. Some of the ads were for…, well, strange stuff. Use your imagination. Not the sort of thing you want to show an employer, or your grandmother.

And sometimes the code that displayed the ads interfered with the student’s own code.

Bummer.

Connect with others

I recommend that you work with other people. It keeps you motivated, and gives you people who will help when you get stuck. When, not if.

You can read more about working with others.

Back to Help