Programmers Who Don't Know HTML
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PIEBALDconsult wrote:
That depends on the browser.
The only difference I know of is that the strong and em tags are used by page readers, for adding emphasis when reading a page out loud, which, to me, means that most instances of them should be replaced by b and i tags, anyway.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
b and i tags
Should not exist.
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Yeah but I can make winforms sit up and beg, I've been building winforms of 1 type or another for decades. SL is still a challenge but I figure I have enough of a grip on it to produce LOB apps.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Mark Wallace wrote:
b and i tags
Should not exist.
May the lord preserve us from evangelistic religious fanatics. How, pray, would you go about adding bold or italic text that is not to be stressed by an electronic voice reading the page?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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A thought just occurred to me (hey, you shut up, it happens on occassion!). I assume that most developers have had some experience with HTML. I'm not sure why; it just seems like a given to me (however unjustifiable that assumption may be). That may be more true of developers who post in the Lounge, considering we are exposed to HTML regularly. However, I am curious... how many of you know developers who don't know at least some basic HTML? If you are reading this, Chris, might be a good topic for a poll.
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A thought just occurred to me (hey, you shut up, it happens on occassion!). I assume that most developers have had some experience with HTML. I'm not sure why; it just seems like a given to me (however unjustifiable that assumption may be). That may be more true of developers who post in the Lounge, considering we are exposed to HTML regularly. However, I am curious... how many of you know developers who don't know at least some basic HTML? If you are reading this, Chris, might be a good topic for a poll.
I do software unit testing for embedded systems and before the beginning of the year have never needed html and have never used it in my work environment. It did however fall part of my studies I did a few years back and it was needed when my boss wanted we to start with some java plugin development on Jenkins CI. Only a little HTML was needed though... Most of the webby stuff gets done with Jelly, which is more executable xml than html. Now that is fun.
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." << please vote!! >>
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May the lord preserve us from evangelistic religious fanatics. How, pray, would you go about adding bold or italic text that is not to be stressed by an electronic voice reading the page?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
By using span and css?
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A thought just occurred to me (hey, you shut up, it happens on occassion!). I assume that most developers have had some experience with HTML. I'm not sure why; it just seems like a given to me (however unjustifiable that assumption may be). That may be more true of developers who post in the Lounge, considering we are exposed to HTML regularly. However, I am curious... how many of you know developers who don't know at least some basic HTML? If you are reading this, Chris, might be a good topic for a poll.
I really don't consider HTML a programming language, it is a markup language. It was designed to navigate documents, not write programs. The various attempts to write programs with HTML are really nothing more than glorified hacks and have significantly slowed down and in some cases reversed progress in good software engineering practices. This is the main reason that to this day users just shrug their shoulders and chuckle when a web site crashes. Flash was the first 'web' programming environment that came close to adhering to any kind of modern software platform and Silverlight is the first platform that I would consider state of the art in terms of good software engineering methodology (and I am definately not a Microsoft fan). The fact that Microsoft appears to be waffling on their Silverlight support in favor of HTML5 and JavaScript is really annoying.
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By using span and css?
robert.osterlind wrote:
By using span and css?
But then you are just adding extra tags solely for the purpose of applying bold and/or italics? Read 'Introducing HTML 5' by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. They state that b and i tags are used precisely for bold and italics that will not receive emphasis from a screen reader. Adding extra spans and divs just leads to bloat and added complexity.
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Interesting. My preference is WPF > Silverlight > Windows Forms > ASP.NET. I have found WPF to be way more powerful/flexible than Windows Forms.
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May the lord preserve us from evangelistic religious fanatics. How, pray, would you go about adding bold or italic text that is not to be stressed by an electronic voice reading the page?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
How, pray, would you go about adding bold or italic text that is not to be stressed by an electronic voice reading the page?
Just curious: Why exactly would i want that? I mean, isn't the purpose of a screen reader to express exactly a given text with all its information? I just don't know any situation in which i would emphasize something that is written which should not be stressed when it's expressed via speech.
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A thought just occurred to me (hey, you shut up, it happens on occassion!). I assume that most developers have had some experience with HTML. I'm not sure why; it just seems like a given to me (however unjustifiable that assumption may be). That may be more true of developers who post in the Lounge, considering we are exposed to HTML regularly. However, I am curious... how many of you know developers who don't know at least some basic HTML? If you are reading this, Chris, might be a good topic for a poll.
I don't know HTML. Oh sure, recently I've had to learn a tiny bit. Find a programmer with more than 15 years experience, and it will increase the odds they don't know any HTML. That web thing is a recent phenomenon. I spent half my career before there was a world wide web. No HTML at all during all that time, and yet we managed to find something to do. You can do backend work without knowing or needing to know HTML. You can do embedded work without needing to know HTML. You can do systems work without needing to know HTML. You can do kernel work. In fact, most of the work that actually requires you to know HTML is kinda lightweight. I'm just sayin...
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robert.osterlind wrote:
By using span and css?
But then you are just adding extra tags solely for the purpose of applying bold and/or italics? Read 'Introducing HTML 5' by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. They state that b and i tags are used precisely for bold and italics that will not receive emphasis from a screen reader. Adding extra spans and divs just leads to bloat and added complexity.
How is it more bloat to add a span than a b or i tag?
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How is it more bloat to add a span than a b or i tag?
<span class="italics">italicize this</span> .italics {font-style:italic} vs. <i>italicize this</i>
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<span class="italics">italicize this</span> .italics {font-style:italic} vs. <i>italicize this</i>
<span class="i b">Bold Italics</span> .i {font-style:italic;} .b {font-weight:bold;} vs <i><b>Bold Italics</b></i> Not much of a difference really in my opinion, with one you get a few more characters, in the other you're nesting it deeper....
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How is it more bloat to add a span than a b or i tag?
This is from the book Introducing HTML 5: em marks up emphasis of the kind that subtly changes the meaning of a sentence; The <i> element "represents a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, or otherwise ofset from the normal prose, such as a taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from another language, a thought, a ship name, or some other prose whose typical typographic presentation is italicized." Here are some examples of <i> where <em> would not be appropriate: <p>The <i>Titanic</i> sails at dawn.</p> <p>The design needs a bit more <i lang=fr>ooh la la</i>. </p> <p>You, sir, deserve a jolly good kick up the <i>gluteus maximus</i>! </p> The strong element represents strong importance for its contents but, unlike <em>, it does not change the meaning of the sentence. The <b> element "represents a span of text to be stylistically ofset from the normal prose without conveying any extra importance, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a review, or other spans of text whose typical typographic presentation is boldened." For example: <p>Remy never forgot his fifth birthday—feasting on <b>powdered toast</b> and the joy of opening his gift: a <b>Log from Blammo! </b>.</p>
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<span class="i b">Bold Italics</span> .i {font-style:italic;} .b {font-weight:bold;} vs <i><b>Bold Italics</b></i> Not much of a difference really in my opinion, with one you get a few more characters, in the other you're nesting it deeper....
Yes, but you are adding span tags that have NO semantic meaning, when you have two perfectly good tags that HAVE semantic meaning.
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Yes, but you are adding span tags that have NO semantic meaning, when you have two perfectly good tags that HAVE semantic meaning.
Coming from the XHTML view rather than the HTML5 view I'd say that the semantic meaning of b and i respectively have been lost due to the misuse of them. I saw your other reply as well, and while I agree in principle on that being a correct usage of it in that case, I disagree with those definitions/usage as being the way they're most commonly used. Also, assuming they DO actually have a semantic meaning (differing from strong and em) that is commonly accepted, you should then use span and CSS for those cases when it is only typographically you want to change it.
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Coming from the XHTML view rather than the HTML5 view I'd say that the semantic meaning of b and i respectively have been lost due to the misuse of them. I saw your other reply as well, and while I agree in principle on that being a correct usage of it in that case, I disagree with those definitions/usage as being the way they're most commonly used. Also, assuming they DO actually have a semantic meaning (differing from strong and em) that is commonly accepted, you should then use span and CSS for those cases when it is only typographically you want to change it.
To be honest, this whole subject has been tirelessly debated for quite some time now, with people always falling on both sides of the matter. I can see your point, too, and respect your answers. :thumbsup: It's important to understand that there are many viewpoints, and many ways to do the same things. In the end, I think a lot of it really comes down to personal preference.
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To be honest, this whole subject has been tirelessly debated for quite some time now, with people always falling on both sides of the matter. I can see your point, too, and respect your answers. :thumbsup: It's important to understand that there are many viewpoints, and many ways to do the same things. In the end, I think a lot of it really comes down to personal preference.
Indeed and likewise :)
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This is from the book Introducing HTML 5: em marks up emphasis of the kind that subtly changes the meaning of a sentence; The <i> element "represents a span of text in an alternate voice or mood, or otherwise ofset from the normal prose, such as a taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from another language, a thought, a ship name, or some other prose whose typical typographic presentation is italicized." Here are some examples of <i> where <em> would not be appropriate: <p>The <i>Titanic</i> sails at dawn.</p> <p>The design needs a bit more <i lang=fr>ooh la la</i>. </p> <p>You, sir, deserve a jolly good kick up the <i>gluteus maximus</i>! </p> The strong element represents strong importance for its contents but, unlike <em>, it does not change the meaning of the sentence. The <b> element "represents a span of text to be stylistically ofset from the normal prose without conveying any extra importance, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a review, or other spans of text whose typical typographic presentation is boldened." For example: <p>Remy never forgot his fifth birthday—feasting on <b>powdered toast</b> and the joy of opening his gift: a <b>Log from Blammo! </b>.</p>
Garbage. If the visual cue doesn't change the nuance and/or meaning, then don't use it. If it does, then visual readers need to be able to interpret it. The historical reason B and I were violations is because they were NOT semantic, they were display. HTML is supposed to be semantic. HTML 5 has deliberately chosen to stop being valid SGML, which is why that historical reason will be ignored more self-righteously from now on. (It won't be ignored more, since it's already at absurd percent, but people may be more smug about being wrong.)
Narf.