Programmers Who Don't Know HTML
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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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Jack Shofner wrote:
It is not a programming language, but only used for formatting pages.
It's not used for formatting pages (not proper HTML, anyway). It's used for describing a document's structure. That's a bit like saying dictionaries are used for filling up your bookshelf.
Jack Shofner wrote:
Why bother with it anyway?
If you don't ever need to do anything to a web page and have no curiosity about it, then you shouldn't need to bother with it. But if you do, then that's why.
Narf.
I did some ASP programming, but that was to add features. It wasn't very much. Other than that, I am in an environment that doesn't require webpage design or webpage development. I am fine about that. I would rather program using WinForms or Mac programs. There are two web servers at my company with third party software. There is quite a difference in WinForm programs and web based programs. I don't have the patience to teach myself all of the HTML, XHTML, XSL, XML, and CSS tags. Plus I don't have the patience to learn ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, or whatever else there is. Besides, a column and row flat based file is smaller and faster to read in and write to, than an XML file with it's tree like structure. XML requires a complex parser to extract the data. That is a lot of CPU cycles.
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I was a 90% winforms dev, under duress I have been known to build ASPX sites, and now do Silverlight, some of us really don't want to build for the web, it really is a crappy platform for business apps. SL/WPF is the closest to a reasonable platform I have seen but I still think winforms is much better. I only build corporate apps, not public facing, and now I'm forced to use the intranet so SL is the decision.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Yes, I agree. It is a crappy platform for business apps. For instance it took me three months to develop a gift card system using WinForms. I have a third party software - common remitting - that runs on a web server. It took the programmers one and a half years to develop it. They used ASP.NET. WinForms using ADO.NET, or a web browser based app calling a web server running ASP.NET using ADO.NET. Which is better?
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I did some ASP programming, but that was to add features. It wasn't very much. Other than that, I am in an environment that doesn't require webpage design or webpage development. I am fine about that. I would rather program using WinForms or Mac programs. There are two web servers at my company with third party software. There is quite a difference in WinForm programs and web based programs. I don't have the patience to teach myself all of the HTML, XHTML, XSL, XML, and CSS tags. Plus I don't have the patience to learn ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, or whatever else there is. Besides, a column and row flat based file is smaller and faster to read in and write to, than an XML file with it's tree like structure. XML requires a complex parser to extract the data. That is a lot of CPU cycles.
Like I said, if you don't need to use it and don't have curiosity about it, then don't. I am certainly not making any personal judgments based on what tools you know. I just wanted to correct some mistaken comments about it because I'm compulsive that way. I'm not sure why you brought up a weird comparison of data tables and XML, though. Data tables are for rigidly structured, 2-dimensional data. XML allows for complex data types. Only its simplest form would be matched by your flat files. And if you need the complexity of XML, nowadays it's often better to get the more compact JSON data structuring. But that would stink of that hacky JavaScript. ;P
Narf.
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I am just learning HTML, and I have been programming since 11 years ago. So I have been a programmer who doesn't know HTML for quite a long time.
Eduardo León
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How is it more bloat to add a span than a b or i tag?
robert.osterlind wrote:
How is it more bloat to add a span than a b or i tag?
How about because the b and i tags already exist, so don't have top be added. And the comment was that it adds more bloat and complexity -- adding something for the sole purpose of doing the job of something that already exists fits both bills.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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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 wrote:
If the visual cue doesn't change the nuance and/or meaning, then don't use it.
That's nonsense. There are dozens of contextual reasons for using bold and italics that do not require that the words be emphasised. For example, If citing a book, you don't want to emphasise the title of the book, but you must italicise it in the text; and if quoting someone's words -- perhaps a whole paragraph of them -- do you really want the reader to read it out Emphasising. Every. Word?
Naruki wrote:
HTML is supposed to be semantic.
The Hell you say. XHTML is semantic; HTML is display only. If you want semantic, use the right tool; don't try to appropriate and pervert the wrong one.
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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I only know the very basics of HTML e.g. <b>, <p> and the like. Although I am retired and therefore in that sense, at least, no longer a developer.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
It's so sad :((
In soviet Russia code debugs You!
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gavindon wrote:
very basic knowledge mainly from the web design class
Eureka! That may be where my prejudice comes from. I guess I assume that all developers have a similar background to me, but as one of the CP polls showed, a good amount of developers never went to college for a degree related to programming, and hence never had to take the "this is a webpage" class.
As one of those whose degree predates the web when we learnt theoretical computing, I have never been on or seen the need for a "this is a webpage" class. Any idea can be expressed in any language albeit not always elegantly. I am including HTML as a language as that is what the 'L' stands for. What does confound me is the plethora of people who use amazingly convoluted tools (e.g. Visual Studio / ASP.Net / Eclipse) to produce reams of code mixing multiple tools to generate something that could be written as a simple single line of HTML.
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Naruki wrote:
If the visual cue doesn't change the nuance and/or meaning, then don't use it.
That's nonsense. There are dozens of contextual reasons for using bold and italics that do not require that the words be emphasised. For example, If citing a book, you don't want to emphasise the title of the book, but you must italicise it in the text; and if quoting someone's words -- perhaps a whole paragraph of them -- do you really want the reader to read it out Emphasising. Every. Word?
Naruki wrote:
HTML is supposed to be semantic.
The Hell you say. XHTML is semantic; HTML is display only. If you want semantic, use the right tool; don't try to appropriate and pervert the wrong one.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
That's nonsense.
No, but your assertion about the purpose of HTML is. Seriously, you are a lunatic if you think you can rewrite 20 years of history with one insane assertion that HTML is not what HTML has always been... until now. I made clear a couple times that HTML 5 is no longer SGML-compliant, which means it is free to violate the semantic-only nature that HTML has always been intended to comprise. This is why the I and B tags were always problems in HTML, because they violated that nature. And this is why good HTML developers use CSS if they need to change the appearance of book titles and other such things without causing screen readers to go crazy. And guess what? There has to be some way of informing the screen readers that they are reading a contextual element such as a BOOK TITLE that should in some way convey more information than just the next word in a sentence. Because sometimes blind people won't know that you are talking about a book title since they can't parse the visual-only world you wrote for. Don't talk to me about perverting tools when you clearly don't know squat about the issue, and I won't teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
Narf.