#and as it turns out websites load really fast when they're not bloated with a bunch of big JS libraries and things. interesting huh.

[stergeon]

Hello there! I happened to find your website and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing how you made it? It looks really neat and I wanted to learn how it was coded and hosted.

hi, thank you so much!! i've been making websites uh. pretty much since i learned how to use the internet, whether for fun or employment or both. i make my "for fun" websites from scratch with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript without any libraries or frameworks. unfortunately, i can't give a great recommendation for web hosting on the cheap if you're just starting out as i've hosted my stuff with the same company since my freelancing days and could definitely get a way better deal elsewhere lmao. the cost of being lazy...

i really, really like talking about web design/making websites/etc. so i don't want to give you an information overload, but if you're interested in learning how to make websites, there are a lot of excellent (and free!) tutorials and reference guides out there to get you started! here are a few:

MDN Web Docs - THE resource for anyone doing web design and development, from complete beginners to advanced devs. their documentation is thorough to the point where it can be intimidating for beginners due to how technical it is, but it's very, very good and their tutorials are fantastic.

W3Schools - similar to MDN, but i find it's much less jargon-heavy and beginner-friendly. it also contains great resources, examples, reference guides, as well as extensive tutorials.

Codecademy - there are a lot of free web and programming courses out there, but i really like the ones codecademy offers. in my experience, the projects are fun, the courses are well-structured, and the community is very helpful. they regularly have great sales for the pro version, too.

if you want to make your own website site from scratch without having to navigate the more complex aspects of hosting, domains, etc., check out Neocities! it's got loads of resources, a great community, and it's free!! it's also near and dear to my heart as a lover of "old web" design sensibilities.

by far the easiest way to start is to download a text editor (i'm partial to Sublime Text, but everyone has their favorite), paste in an HTML boilerplate like this one, save it to your device as a .HTML file and then open it in your web browser. it will only be accessible on your local device and not over the internet, but you can play around and build things out without it being public and it’s an easy way to get a feeling for how things work.

my final recommendation is not so much about the specifics of making a website, but how to think about making a website. when i was a young stergeon at my first big web design job, my mentor gave me the book Don't Make Me Think! by steve krug and it was Huge for me. some of the technology-specific material is outdated nowadays as it was last updated in 2014, but the book is still a fantastic introduction to design thinking, visual language, and user experience principles.

hope this helps!!!! happy to chat more if you have questions <3