If you are coming into this with absolutely no knowledge of web coding then it can appear very overwhelming. Do not expect to be building your portfolio site in HTML on the first day! It will take some time and dedicated studying before you memorize the common page elements and CSS properties. But within a week or two you should be feeling very comfortable reading HTML.
Go read the whole thing over at SpeckyBoy.
A typographic, designological, visulicious extravaganza!