So, we’re doing a module in my computing course at college where we are eventually going to have to build a web application. Basically a web site with some flashy and interactive stuff on it.
However, this course assumes that you have absolutely no experience whatsoever when it comes to making web pages. So, we were given a brief intro to HTML and told to go off and make a simple web page.
I went off and coded this completely from scratch (well, apart from the doctype declaration, which I copied and pasted) in Notepad in a few minutes. Meanwhile, my friend sitting next to me was like “WTF!?” and asking me how to change the colour of text.
The proper way to do this would be to create a CSS class and use that. However, since this guy is completely new to web design and was thus having trouble using HTML tags properly, I thought best to not go down that road. And everywhere I looked, all I could see where awful looking pages - large, brightly coloured Times New Roman text on an equally bright and contrasting background. Maybe even with an awful, unfunny and obnoxious animated GIF playing in the background.
I can’t really blame them though. It wouldn’t surprise me if half of them had even heard of HTML before, let alone have ever used it. I’ve been using it for close to four years now, and have been striving to code in W3C compliant XHTML for a while now as well. So I guess it’s only natural that I feel this way. I’ve a feeling this module is going to be much more of the same.
Apparently we’re going to be taking an actual Web Design module during the second semester. Hmm, let’s see how that turns out. I really hope we do some server side scriping at some point as well. Although I highly doubt we’ll be using PHP if we do. Probably ASP or something like that. 
I also, at some point on the near future, may be going down with a friend or two to visit a couple of mates who are at Uni. One in Glasgow and one in Dundee. Should be great fun if I can get it organised. 
Anyway, that’s all.
Gary Says:
So what road did you go about in teaching this guy how to change the colour of links? The style tag or font-color? 
Also, what did your lecturer say about your fancy coding?
Joe Says:
I just told him to use the font tag. But I didn’t actually tell him what to do.
And no, he didn’t say anything. He never got a chance to look at it.
Gary Says:
Heh, that’s probably a good idea, otherwise you’ll get everyone in the class asking you for help. Just how Mike, Sanjee and I did.
Joe Says:
I don’t really mind helping people out now and again. But I am NOT advising them to use a method that is so severely deprecated.
Once we move on to actually using XHTML and CSS, I might change my tune.
Gary Says:
Heh. When I was in college all we did was rely on Dreamweaver to do the coding (of course, I did understand what the code was for most part) and I managed to get a B, with invalid code and very little CSS with lots of deprecated methods.
Mostly because even the teacher didn’t know how to code properly.
So if I were you, I wouldn’t take the chance of eventually switching to XHTML and CSS in the class and just (and tell people to) do it the proper way anyway.
Joe Says:
Oh, we are switching over the XHTML and CSS. The lecturer told us that we are. And he seems to know what he’s talking about as well.
Gary Says:
Then your lecturer is better than ours.
Joe Says:
Heh.
Although, he’s particularly fond of JavaScript. Eugh. 
