When I first started school for IT, I had a choice to make. Do I take web design or network administration? I chose the latter, but I still had the desire to learn web design. I had tried to create my own websites with third-party site builder software. The kind that provide a template and you add the content you want. However, I never found a template that I really liked.
It wasn’t until I took the Build Websites from Scratch with HTML & CSS from Udemy.com that I really started to learn how to do it on my own. After many years of tinkering, copying, and pasting code-snippets, I finally learned how to build a site. The course at Udemy, instructed by Brad Hussey, walked me through the basics to get me started on creating my own sites and onto some more advanced topics. I was able to create my first site after completing the course.
I have since found FreeCodeCamp.com. I made it to the Bootstrap section and then decided I could redesign my whole site with it! I went on to create this site using Bootstrap with Nginx, PHP-FPM, and Postfix running on CentOS 7 for the backend. I am still green and I will never be done learning, but I feel I have improved.
For me, the joy is in the learning. It took me a while to get to this point, but I am glad I am here. I can now create my own sites and, with the network administration background, host it on my own servers. That is progress for me.