Creeva's World 2.0 - Latest Comments in The HTML is Easy Myth

Re: The HTML is Easy Myth

creeva — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 16:43:51 -0000

When I mentioned prefer CSS (and this post is 5 years old) - I have dealt with many sites back then and since - that did not use CSS - pure .html files only. Up until the last few months the company I work for used straight HTML instead of a CMS.

I understand and I'm comfortable with the basics - I just don't believe the majority of people these days will ever need to even know those. I remember back in the late 90's that they stated everyone will know html - those days have unfortunately passed and that belief never made it to fruition thanks to CMS systems.

Re: The HTML is Easy Myth

Ben — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 14:33:18 -0000

Not to disagree, but I think HTML is generally fairly easy. There are a limited number of tags you really need to know to get started, and you can learn those in a few hours. HTML is not a programming language, it is a formatting language. It's like writing a Word document, but more precise.

To me, the statement that you "prefer CSS to HTML" is very strange. It's not a choice, they only work together. HTML determines what elements on a page are (are they headings? paragraphs? tables?), and in what order they are organized. CSS determines how those elements look, what color they are, etc. A CSS file contains only style information, no content that a user could read.

It's true that complicated things can be done with HTML and CSS, but I think that the basics are easy, and I frankly think that anyone who is doing content management for a living should have at least an understanding of HTML for text formatting purposes: headings, strong, em, anchors, paragraphs, lists, tables, etc.

I found this post because I get frustrated when I come across horribly mangled HTML done using a WYSIWYG editor. WYSIWYG editors and Microsoft Word teach bad habits and (usually) generate messy HTML. HTML itself can (should) be very clean and simple -- if it is, it's easy to read and understand.

I do agree that some people won't be bothered to learn, but I also think that markdown or something like that might be a better solution than WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG editors make it seems like "anything is possible, you just make it look the way you want" but in fact, a lot of times this causes problems. A person using a visual editor can only guess at how the computer is formatting their content based on what they see. They can't understand why their text keeps turning blue (for example) and they can't solve the problem because the HTML is invisible to them. In fact, this might be caused by something like a blank anchor tag "" which the visual editor failed to completely remove when they took out a link. Markdown is more readable than HTML, but much more precise and less deceiving than a visual editor.

I guess i get on a bit of a tear about this kind of thing, but I'm passionate about making it simpler for people to write content correctly for the internet, because as a web developer I spend a lot of time cleaning up messes that could have been avoided simply by not using a visual editor and having a small amount of knowledge of HTML. Maybe Markdown is the answer.

Edit: even for CMSes -- Wordpress, etc. entering text content in HTML is more effective than using the visual editor, I think.

Re: The HTML is Easy Myth

alexfxtrader — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:01:05 -0000

An interesting post. I do concur that with the introduction of GUI front end web editors, the needing to know the ins and outs of HTML has become somewhat redundant. It's particularly telling when you see these days how much a web designer now gets paid (a pittance). The real knowledge and skill is web development, moreover the development of web applications.
I do use web editor, but I'm one of those people who likes to look at the code to see what it's doing (I'm a bit anal that way). I'm far more impressed by people who create the wonderful web applications.

Re: The HTML is Easy Myth

creeva — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:42:40 -0000

CSS is so much easier then HTML since it is more human readable (even though they say HTML is human readable). If you manage to ever get over to the wordpress platform you'll be doing alot with CSS in themes (you also do it in blogspot themes).

I managed to first get online to the "real internet" back in 94, but I didn't do any HTML for years. After moving to a CMS (content managment system) or blog platform I can say I would never move to static pages done in HTML ever again.

Re: The HTML is Easy Myth

Miragi — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:46:29 -0000

I learned my HTML basics from WebMonkey tutorials and from building an Angelfire webpage back, way back...in the day :) I have NO clue what CSS is, and it frightens me but someday I'll probably meander into learning about it too. Why not. I already know I don't WANT 2 b a web architect, but learning about what it takes never hurts! :)

My son's doing the whole programming/game design thing at college. He has an exponentially larger amount of patience than his mother :)

I missed out on alot when the internet began....we didn't get it til 99. Always behind.

You rock as usual :)