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HTML - how much effort to make ?


Guest FenestraeNunquam
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Guest FenestraeNunquam

I'm learning basic html for a college IS class. It doesn't seem too difficult, in fact its kind of easy. I am working on a simple web page and it is going ok.

 

However, I was wondering how much effort I should put into learning "advanced" html web page design after my class is over. I have heard that html is getting slowly replaced by xml, php, or whatever.

 

Or will html be around for quite a while still? I don't want to spend a lot of effort on learning everything about html if it becomes obsolete right after I learn it...

 

thanks for any comments

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IMHO html will be here for a long time. XML and HTML wont disturb eachother as HTML works on the format data field whereas XML goes far and work in the structure data field.

 

Also as you know html can be formulated in XML: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

 

so if you learn xhtml (html that acomplishes the xml rules) you are learning a part of xml

 

I build my web pages using xhtml

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php is a server side scripting laungauge used mostly too output dynamic html, so you would still need to know html to use php for making webpages.

 

html is not that usefull by itself you should look at learning javascript, css, and the dom aswell.

You can do a lot with these.

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Guest FenestraeNunquam

yeah - some of those things are classes that are coming up later.

 

I have my choice of 4 electives - I haven't decided completely yet but I am leaning towards Web Page Design I (includes some CSS), Active Server Pages, Java, and JavaScript.

 

btw - what's xhtml? I could look it up myself to see what it is, but I'm feeling lazy these days... so someone just tell me... :?

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Learn XHTML, and it'll serve you well for a long time.

And more important, rely on XHTML for only structure, no more (meaning no presentation, just structure), no less (meaning don't make your page with just div and span ;-) ). Everything else (that is: presentation), do with CSS (as much as browsers' compatibility allows).

In the end, all that will be valuable knowledge because XHTML is an XML subset, so you'll have the basics of XML; and CSS can be used with XML also.

Of course, you can also use a little Javascript, but then rely strictly on the DOM specification (in the end, you'll win in quality and compatibility); don't trust those code exerpts that appear now and then on the Internet. Just trust DOM, yourself, and other people that have the same coding standards.

 

After learning this, there are two things you may want to do:

1- learn dynamic HTML creation, either "real" dynamic, with perl/PHP/..., or "false" dynamic, by using the WML tool.

2- you could take the next step, and learn XSL transformation on XML documents.

 

I really should update my website... I really should. It would speak of Linux, bash, web development, and Java...

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One thing that's guided me for many years.... When I went through RM school in the Coast Guard, even though we were learning SATCOM and state-of-the-art communications technologies, we also HAD to learn CW (morse code). The theory was, as long as someone had a transmitter and two rusty wires, there was a chance that they'd be sending a distress signal with it. All I'm saying is at least be familiar with the older technologies :) You never know when someone might stumble upon your site using CAB, TLOA, or other off-beat browsers/platforms.

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