From the mass migration to CSS-based web design these past few years, a single tool has emerged to help young grasshoppers. It is a beacon, a rite-of-passage and a pool of tranquility in the ever-churning, dynamic webscape. It is a curiosity of a website, static yet inherently transitory, in an age when permanence is enjoyed solely by megaliths like google and myspace.
If you’re a web designer, and you’ve passed the specific turning-point where you begin to understand the power of CSS, then you’ll already be familiar with the Zen garden. Should you find yourself at that juncture in the future, surely you will happen upon this site, the famous CSS Zen Garden. (when the student is ready, the master will appear!)
It is a fantastic resource. A static HTML file explains the garden, and lists a number of styles submitted by people from all over. Click on one, and the page reloads with the selected style sheet. The textual content is the same, but the layout changes dramatically. After trying out a few of these, you’ll begin to realize (satori!) what CSS is capable of and why it is beneficial.
And studying the CSS files themselves is a great way to learn CSS. Just install the equally-helpful web developer toolbar for firefox, peek under the hood of any Zen garden style, and you’re on your way to standards-compliant Buddha-dom.