Programmers Who Don't Know HTML
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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.
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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.
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.
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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 know little of HTML. It is not a programming language, but only used for formatting pages. Why bother with it anyway?
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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.
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 :)
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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.
HOWEVER...I once worked at a place where, by virtue of (among other things) "he taught himself HTML over a weekend", a 25-year old documentor became project leader for a major web/IVR development effort. A year later, with three failed distributions and numerous after-distribution emergency fixes required (some taking longer to develop and run than did the original buggy code), this individual was packed off to California to another project, and probably never programmed again. At the time, I didn't know HTML, and saw no reason to learn it before I actually had to use it. By the time I did, CSS style sheets had become the standard, so I'm glad I didn't bother to learn stuff I would have had to unlearn later. After all, why bother to learn a "language" that any reasonably bright fool can learn in a weekend?
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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 thought it was the other way around. When the WWW was in its infancy we had HTML training for some of the people who were going to maintain their location's web page. Coming out of the class one woman was overheard to say, "Now that we're programmers shouldn't we be making more money?"
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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I know little of HTML. It is not a programming language, but only used for formatting pages. Why bother with it anyway?
Jack Shofner wrote:
Why bother with it anyway?
Do you realize that the page you used to post that comment and the page you are reading this comment on is HTML? :)
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I thought it was the other way around. When the WWW was in its infancy we had HTML training for some of the people who were going to maintain their location's web page. Coming out of the class one woman was overheard to say, "Now that we're programmers shouldn't we be making more money?"
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
Lilith.C wrote:
Now that we're programmers shouldn't we be making more money?
:laugh: :thumbsup:
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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.
I am not convinced most 'web programmers' know the difference JavaScript falls into the category of Glorified Hack in my opinion...
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Actually I couldn't even write Hello World in HTML... I'm a winforms developer, don't need to know all that stuff. Although I did have my own phpBB forums on which I 'installed' mods (I had documents saying 'insert code x at line y') etc. So I have a really very tiny little bit of experience I guess. That was before I became a programmer though.
It's an OO world.
