h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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A668252

I'll have a look when I get back on monday.

Sounds like a good idea though!

good idea but I'm not covinced abut the implementation

barly mentions web standards or accessibility.

If this is intended as a University project, I believe it should be submitted to the Admissions Office <./>University-Recruit</.>

not my project

I would have to agree with the point about barely mentioning web standards. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Sitting someone down in front of a copy of Frontpage does not make them a web designer.

If you ask me (and I know nobody did), you have to fundamentally understand HTML before you should use WYSIWYG editors to create webpages. This is like learning arithmetic before you learn to use a calculator.

I should also add that HTML was never meant to be created with WYSIWYG editors and as such most (all?) of them have trouble dealing with its subtleties. Dare I even mention the nightmarish CSS problems I've seen? Inline CSS replaces bad HTML formatting with bad CSS formatting. What's the point? CSS belongs in external files where you can define common formatting for multiple pages.

Of the tools I've seen, Dreamweaver is probably the best but an editor is no substitute for knowing how HTML actually works. The garbage that Frontpage and the other MS Office produce doesn't even qualify as HTML. If you've ever tried to view your e-mail using Telnet and hit an HTML mail produced by Outlook, Hotmail, et. al you'll know what I mean. I received a 320 KB HTML e-mail that contained about 1K of useful information. Most of the rest was \n. Argh.

Fundamentally understand HTML? Who (among the non- majority) has the time? That's like saying than before you can use a computer you need to know the fundamentals of computer architecture. The WYSIWYG editors definitely have their place, and that place keeps people who don't have a clue about what they are doing from writing the kind of HTML that could destroy the universe.

In fact, I would fault that set of articles for focusing too much on HTML. That's a lot of information to absorb before creating a simple web page. And I would never create a table by hand - troubleshoot one yes, but why bother with the hassle to start with?


(Pardon the overstatement. I've just had a )

A basic understand HTML/XHTML is usful as WYSIWYG are as has been pointed out far from perfect and probally no more difficult to aquire than the knowlage of GuideML that most here seem to have.

HTML just isn't that hard. I guess to me it's sortof like learning all the rules of a game before you play it. I'm not saying you need to know computer architecture to use one - that would be dumb. You should, however, understand the basics of what the computer is doing before you use it. "When I hit save, this file is going into a little box inside my computer." I don't know how many times I've seen people that were too lazy to learn the basics of a computer screw up their operating system out of sheer ignorance.

Quoth the poster:
The WYSIWYG editors definitely have their place, and that place keeps people who don't have a clue about what they are doing from writing the kind of HTML that could destroy the universe.

The problem with WYSIWYG editors is that they DO produce the kind of HTML that could destroy the universe. HTML is not a word processing format, nor a publishing format and treating it as such is like using a screwdriver in place of a hammer. That's precisely what most WYSIWYG editors do. I'd challenge you to run any WYSIWYG HTML code through the W3C HTML validator (validator.w3.org). I'd put money on the fact that it won't validate without hand modification.

I'm curious where you would put the focus of a web page article if not on HTML. HTML and CSS are the important part of any webpage - structure and formatting. This isn't flamebait or a troll, I honestly want to know your opinion.

Tables really aren't that much of a hassle if you're comfortable with hand coding them - plus I get the exact results that I want every time. I find there are too many variables in tables (should I collapse these empty cells with a colspan or leave them as single cells?) for a WYSIWYG editor to handle them properly. At least in my tables. I can't speak for anyone else.

My, amazing what happens when you step outside The Building for a while... what is that new color scheme all about?

Anyway. To address some points:

Gosho: This already *has* been submitted and is an approved Uni Project. It's actually been kicking around for quite some time. I offered to help out the original author, and became primary author when the project began to stagnate. That's when I put in the bulk of the article. This Uni Project has been in stasis for a while because I just started grad school. Now that I'm established and have some spare time, I will polish it up.

Web standards and accessiblity: excellent suggestions. I'll add those in shortly.

Yes, I teach this from the perspective that if you're going to put together a webpage you should learn the basics of HTML. It's not as scary as people think. I liked the analogy of learning arithmetic before using a calculator: WYSIWYG editors have their place, certainly, but you need a solid grounding in the basics. As for it being a lot of information to absorb: Uni Projects are designed to be more in-depth than the average Guide entry. Also, it's broken up into easier-to-digest chunks; you can always bookmark the entry and come back.

Hope that answers a few questions- give me a holler if you have any other suggestions/improvements as I revise it.

"Yes, I teach this from the perspective that if you're going to put together a webpage you should learn the basics of HTML" but isnt it better if you teach them in a way that complies with web standards right from the start

see also comments over at F83965?thread=207080

Web standards from the start would be my goal, anyway. It's better to teach people the right way the first time than to try to fix bad habits later.

I would definitely say the material should be shifted to standards compliant XHTML and CSS (and maybe even a little bit of the DOM if the project gets into scripting).

Once again:

Re: standards compliance

I'll look at the compliance issue when I do the first set of revisions later tonight. However, I do tend to have the attitude of "as long as it displays properly in Netscape and IE, that's close enough for me". I'm not writing this entry for professional web page designers, just for hobbyists. Standards compliance could easily have a whole separate entry unto itself (and already does, I believe) so I'm not going to go too in depth with this article. Remember the scope of this article is for absolute rank beginners. As long as they get something up without any major errors in the major browsers, they can worry about the finer details of compliance later.

Re: XHTML vs HTML

Look, HTML is not completely antiquated. It is still perfectly valid and can be used to put together a simple web page. That is the scope of this article: *a simple webpage*. If you're so keen on XHTML go write an entry yourself on it. I'm not going to write about XHTML in this article and that's that.

Re: editors

HappyDude: I don't assume that everyone is made of money. I don't even *use* an editor myself. I just list the most common ones as examples; I'm not endorsing any of them. I'll throw a couple open-source ones in the mix to placate the OSS fans..

Honestly. I went through this same sort of runaround with the browser cookies entry. I worked in tech support both during and out of university- I learned that when you want to introduce a computer-related topic to novices, tell them just what they absolutely need to know at first then build on it later on. This entry is the just the basics- I'm leaving the more advanced material to get the in-depth attention it deserves in separate articles.

"I learned that when you want to introduce a computer-related topic to novices, tell them just what they absolutely need to know at first then build on it later on. "

Couldn't agree more but teach them right from the start - it would take less than half an hour to convert your examples to the "XHTML 1.0 Transitional" specification.

"I'm not going to write about XHTML in this article and that's that"

Then you better hand the project over to someone who will.

If you are going to do this do it properly for gawds sake.

I stopped reading after this

"First, you need HTML.
HTML stands for Hypertext Mark-up Language. "Hypertext" is the text, images, sound files, etc that you want to display, and "mark up language" means that these are the commands that tell the browser how to display it. HTML is not a programming language in the strictest sense of the word. Programming languages talk directly to the computer's brain, the central processing unit (CPU), and give the CPU instructions. HTML talks not to the CPU but to the browser (such as Netscape or Internet Explorer)."

If you use the strictist sence of the word then there hasn't been programming language since turning dials representing 1 & 0 to start machines in the 60's

HTML is a scripting language which is a programming language that is interpreted not compiled.

Re: WYSIWYG, they are very useful to learn HTML. All but one that I've used had an HTML tab that highlighted the current section of HTML that represented what was currently selected in the WYSIWYG tab. You end up using the HTML tabs to do things quickly an learn a lot easier.

I don't think HTML is a scripting language. It's more akin to things like RTF or Postscript file formats, i.e. just a human readable file format. I think there are some things that have to be in any definition of a programming language - conditional branching and looping are two that jump to mind. Javascript and things like that are scripting languages, and if you think of them as being part of HTML then HTML is a programming language, but I think that's stretching the idea a bit. If you took that view, then the MS Word document file format is also a programming language (because of the possibility of embedding VBScript in it), etc.

I suppose I should add that I think this is a great idea for a project…
but as is it is just one of a 1000 other learn to code HTML articles on the internet, be better than that use XHTML, show how the “summary” attribute of the element and the “long description” attribute of the element can be used to make sites more accessible to those who use voice readers.

Why not also include a link to http://validator.w3.org/ in the "Other useful sites" section along with a note explaining that the validator can be a useful way of debugging web-pages

1. I'M NOT DONE. The project is still listed as "pending", and I put a big ol' blurb to that effect at the top of the entry. Yes, I will get around to putting DOCTYPE in there, yes I will get around to putting the validator link in there, yes there are other errors and reorganizations and additions on the list of "changes to be made". I started some of them tonight. However, coursework and my job do take precedence so I'll only be able to do a little at a time.

2. I am not going to cover XHTML in my article. You obviously like it and are knowledgable about it. Why not submit your own Uni Project proposal for a stand-alone piece on XHTML? Or write an edited Guide entry?