Starting Out

[TwilightBliss]

  First let me introduce myself, I'm new to most of this but want to learn, just for learning and information's sake. I've spend a fair deal of time reading through posts on your site. I thought, to start I might try to learn Css or Xss as Phlux has posted about. Anyone help or tips would be appriciated.

  If I act like a fool and follow in the footsteps of what some other people posted in this Neophyte section please slap me back on course.

Thanks, I appriciate it.  

[benthehutt]

What is it you intend to do in particular?  I'm not good at xss myself, but I am savy at a few of the languages used; mainly javascript, flash, and perl.  Metty will probably post a long message pretty soon, he knows more about this kind of stuff I believe.

[Metgod]

Ok.. I'm sick but I'll try to reply here. Hope it makes sense and is helpful

While I don't know those specific languages, I can maybe suggest a few things about languages in general.

What I would recommend - as obvious as some of it may sound - is that you do some reading to get accustomed to the basic idea behind the language. If you've never programmed before, maybe even read a bit on programming concepts (because there are some things that can help you out along the way, even if just simple things to keep in mind.. although some of it is highly debateable).

Anyway, then it's really rather simple (maybe time consuming though). I'd say you should come up with a project that you'd like to work on.. whatever it may be. Write down all details (an outline if you will) and how things should work. It can help you organize your thoughts more. I tend to neglect this at times, but I can say it does help me when I actually do follow through. Each person can work differently though; this is merely a suggestion (the most important part is you work on what you want to create and work how you best work).

After that, it's really just a matter of a loop:

Try some things out. Change things. Experiment with anything you can think of and see how it turns out. But you have to keep reading and experimenting.. and in time you should get the hang of it.

And never be afraid to ask questions

Anyway, hope this is of some help to you.

Good luck, and if you have any comments/questions, feel free to ask.

[TwilightBliss]

Any good tutorials or information you recommand learning or IRC server to dwell in?

I thought I would start learning by trying some things. I'm currently trying some challenges at http://www.hackthissite.org/

Could I get some help with things I don't know how to do from you guys or should I try their forums?