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Comment by mistro | Hacker News Reader

Your second point is off the mark - I teach a load of kids (12-16 years old or so) who know all about pressing F12 and looking at source code, but who know next to nothing more about HTML, CSS, Python etc.

Whether or not they'd be interested in reading a book when you can just watch it on Youtube is another matter entirely!

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> 2. If someone is looking in the code, they're probably ready for books beyond "HTML & CSS".

Key word in my original statement - "probably". I didn't claim that everyone reading it was beyond needing a beginners book, just that a reader of the code was "probably" ready for books beyond "HTML & CSS".

As for books versus Youtube - yep, I'm an immigrant. In most cases, I personally still prefer books, online tutorials, and online forums to Youtube. But I'm not surprised to hear that isn't the case with kids. But then again, we're discussion a book-seller's site.

My 12-yo is learning HTML/JS by reading and modifying websites' code.

That is how I learned when I was 12 too :)

Back then I didn't have developer tools though. That lowers the bar considerably to newcomers. :)

I first got excited about web design when my computer teacher taught me how to change table cell background colors, in Netscape Composer. Now I do responsive CSS for a living!

I remember the endless amusement I had using Firebug to create ridiculous headlines on yahoo.com.

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