Programmers Who Don't Know HTML

Machaira

Silverlight and ASP.NET don't require much in-depth HTML knowledge. I know only a couple of tags that I usually use in forums and have HTML enabled. There really shouldn't be a need for HTML these days IMO.

R Erasmus

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!! >>

robert osterlind

By using span and css?

Dave Goughnour

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.

Alexander DiMauro

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.

Alexander DiMauro

You are 'AspDotNetDev', and you put ASP.NET on the BOTTOM of your preference? :) Anyway, while I agree with your list for the most part, for me I would further break it down to this: ASP.NET MVC 3 > WPF > Silverlight > Windows Forms > ASP.NET WebForms

Nicolas Forgerit

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.

SeattleC

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...

robert osterlind

How is it more bloat to add a span than a b or i tag?

Alexander DiMauro

italicize this .italics {font-style:italic} vs. italicize this

robert osterlind

Bold Italics .i {font-style:italic;} .b {font-weight:bold;} vs Bold Italics 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....

Alexander DiMauro

This is from the book Introducing HTML 5: em marks up emphasis of the kind that subtly changes the meaning of a sentence; The 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 where would not be appropriate: The Titanic sails at dawn. The design needs a bit more ooh la la. You, sir, deserve a jolly good kick up the gluteus maximus! The strong element represents strong importance for its contents but, unlike , it does not change the meaning of the sentence. The 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: Remy never forgot his fifth birthday—feasting on powdered toast and the joy of opening his gift: a Log from Blammo! .

Alexander DiMauro

Yes, but you are adding span tags that have NO semantic meaning, when you have two perfectly good tags that HAVE semantic meaning.

robert osterlind

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.

Alexander DiMauro

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.

robert osterlind

Indeed and likewise :)

Naruki 0

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.

Naruki 0

Um, anyone who does think HTML is a programming language is simply ignorant. The ML part stands for Markup Language. Until HTML 5, it was a subset of SGML. There has never been a successful attempt to write programs in HTML because that is impossible. There is nothing at all programmy about it. JavaScript, which is associated with nearly all the HTML pages in existence, is a programming language, but it is nevertheless not HTML.

Narf.

Jack Shofner

I know little of HTML. It is not a programming language, but only used for formatting pages. Why bother with it anyway?

cpkilekofp

AspDotNetDev wrote:

how many of you know developers who don't know at least some basic HTML?

We have a number of developers who don't know HTML. They program in FORTRAN on OpenVMS. In fairness, I've forgotten almost every bit of DCL that I ever knew :)