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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 02 2019, @04:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the lawns dept.

"Front-end" developer, Pete Lambert, writes about why front-end "web" developers should start to learn HTML. More and more developers are using only pre-made frameworks and quite unfamiliar with the fundmentals of the technology they are using, such as semantic markup. He notes that the continued failure to pay attention to the basics of semantics is slowly breaking what's left of the World Wide Web and suggests reasons to correct that and has some pointers to learning resources.

I’m a ‘frontend of the frontend’ kind of guy. My expertise is in HTML and CSS, so it’s easy for me to wax lyrical about why everybody should learn what I already know (for the record, I don’t know it all - we still have heated debates in the office about what the best way to mark up a certain component might be). This isn’t about ‘my job’s more important than yours. If you’re writing code that renders things in a browser, this is your job.

It’s about usability and accessibility. If you don’t think the semantic structure of your Web page or app is important then you’re essentially saying “Well, it works for me in my browser, ship it”. I don’t think you’d do that with your Javascript and you certainly shouldn’t be doing it with your CSS. Search engines need to read your content, not enjoy your swoopy animations or fancy gradients. Screen reader software needs to read your content. Keyboard users need to read your content. Who knows what technology will come next and how it will consume your app but I’ll bet my bottom Bitcoin it’ll work better if it can easily read, parse and traverse your content. The way these things read your content is that they know it’s actually content and not just strings of text wrapped in meaningless tags. They know what’s a table and how to present it, they know what’s a list and how to present it, they know what’s a button and what’s a checkbox. Make everything from divs and they’re going to have to work bloody hard to figure that out.

Earlier on SN:
How to Build and Host an Energy Efficient Web Site (2018)
Conservative Web Development (2018)
Dodgy Survey Shows 1 in 10 Believe HTML is an STD? (2014)


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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 02 2019, @08:21PM (6 children)

    Press F11 to reveal the Styles and Formatting. At first pay attention only to Paragraph and Character styles. A Paragraph style applies to an entire paragraph. Similarly a Character style applies to a range of characters.

    Yes. That is useful. But it wasn't at all what I was talking about and is much less intuitive use than the old WordPerfect "Reveal Codes" Mode.

    Essentially, reveal codes provides two panes, one with the WYSIWYG content and one with the text and formatting *inline* as editable tags in the text. This makes troubleshooting formatting issues much, much easier. This link shows reveal codes in action [wordperfect.com].

    Actually, it's kind of similar to the SN "preview" section (wysiwyg) and the comment section while your'e writing a comment. In the "comment" section, you see all the formatting tags, while in the "preview" section you see it as it would be displayed.

    Note that in WordPerfect, you can edit in both sections at the same time, or just use the WYSIWYG pane.

    This is quite different from "styles" in LibreOffice or the similar functionality in Word, and far superior IMHO.

    It must be frustrating that you've had trouble with LibreOffice Write.

    I haven't had "trouble" with it. I've used both LibreOffice and MS Office for decades without issue. I just *prefer* the functionality of "reveal codes" mode, which has (despite the fact that it kicks ass over pretty much any other format editing scheme) never been duplicated. That's sad.

    What's more, functionality like "reveal codes" would be a huge boon to those creating HTML too.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 02 2019, @08:29PM (5 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 02 2019, @08:29PM (#862521) Journal

    As I said, to each their own.

    If I had a large investment in having learned those reveal codes, I would probably like them also.

    Once ages ago (1982-1984) I used the UCSD p-System editor. I was extremely adept at it. Knew all the keystrokes. Just like watching an experienced Vi or Emacs user. In 1984 I started using GUI based editors and never looked back. As a result, I never learned Vim or Emacs. I've recently been learning Vim because it is very handy at the command line often, and I have started using some non-GUI installations in recent years. (for personal projects. Sometimes on raspberry Pi, or on VMs.) My point: I'm sensitive to the idea that people invest in learning things and are reluctant to change if what they've got works very well for them.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 02 2019, @08:41PM (4 children)

      If I had a large investment in having learned those reveal codes, I would probably like them also.

      That's was the beauty of the thing, you don't need any investment at all.

      Just use alt-F3 and it will show you exactly what the formatting is. No muss, no fuss, no selecting text and looking at a styles pane, it's *all* embedded tags in the plain text.

      Whether that be fonts/sizes, tabsets, line spacing, bold, italic, etc., etc., etc. absolutely every single formatting option is represented as tags wrapped around the text it modifies. Simple and elegant.

      But WordPerfect isn't mainstream any more and I haven't used it in decades.

      I can (and do) use LibreOffice and MSOffice just fine, but that one feature would make usability *significantly* better.

      And given that we're talking about HTML here, it would be even *more* useful in that space.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Tuesday July 02 2019, @09:02PM (3 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @09:02PM (#862542) Journal

        And given that we're talking about HTML here, it would be even *more* useful in that space.

        Any good text editor provides for a preview pane where you can view HTML, Markdown, etc. in it's already formatted form, while the actual source code is editable in the plain vanilla pane.

        Most of them use OS-level HTML rendering engines, so generally, you do see exactly what you're going to get for most reasonable sets of HTML formatting.

        I use a macro language that gives me exactly what I want, generating the CSS and HTML according to my personal specifications. Works great, nothing out of reach or hidden. It brings the ability to create any reusable formatting tool or toolkit I like to every formatting job, with the additional strength of write-once/debug-once. That's what generated this post, in fact.

        For instance, when it turns out that some CSS thing needs a fix for browser X (not uncommon, because CSS is an out-of-control mutant), then (if I give a damn about browser X), it's one change to the macro and the entire suite of pages is fixed.

        None of which would do me any good at all if I didn't have a decent handle on HTML/CSS markup.

        --
        Patience: What you exercise when there are too many witnesses.

        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday July 02 2019, @09:49PM (2 children)

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @09:49PM (#862548) Journal

          Sigh... in first para, "it's" should be "its."

          I've known this for fifty years, and I still do it without thinking.

          --
          A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single schlep

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 02 2019, @10:48PM (1 child)

            Perhaps you should have this [ambians.com] tattooed on this inside of your eyelids:

            It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
            is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
            isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
                                            -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

            Just sayin'.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:14PM

              by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday July 02 2019, @11:14PM (#862569) Journal

              oy, lol

              --
              The only thing flat-earthers have to fear is sphere itself.