While thats where many people start, its worth noting that its really a markup language that lacks core programming concepts (if statements, loops, etc...) Not that it isn't helpful!

And as a relatively amusing anecdote, I started teaching myself HTML when I was 8 or 9, when my family had gotten our first Windows PC. I had no idea what copy/paste was, yet somehow I knew how to view source and ended up handwriting out HTML and then retyping it into Geocities (yep. Geocities). Thats one way to never forget it ;)

Yeah, same here. It was super easy to do in the 90s too. Prodigy homepage builder and I just went from there. Good times.

Why is this good advice? It isn't the only way to learn programming, so why is it better than others?