2006-04-15
So you want to give bullshit advice, huh?
Where the shit starts: right here.
This guy has been around for some time, since the days of Netscape 3.0, I believe. Back then having a page on Geocities actually counted for something.
Let's progress to today. This individual declares:If you know nothing about HTML, this is where you start.
Nah, mate, it's close to the last place you would start.
One page into his week long exercise, the site insists that users of lynx or Cello upgrade. Cello? A 16-bit browser from yore that I couldn't get to work with Windows 2000 no matter how hard I tried. It's from the days of Windows 3.1, for chrissakes, 16 bit everything, including TCP/IP. I doubt it supports any CSS and anything more than HTML 2.0. If you're still using Cello then you're more stubborn than Paul Kruger apparently was.
Lynx has its uses; it allows you to view web pages much the same way a robot or a spider would. Don't knock it. No, I wouldn't use it to surf the web as a habit but it's a good tool to have floating around.
The Height of the Debauchery
The reason I am pushing NotePad, WordPad, and Simple Text is that they save in text-only format without your doing any additional work. They just do it. But, if you're like me, then you will want to start writing on a word processor, like WORD, or WordPerfect. Maybe you're just more comfortable on it. If so, read this next part carefully.
No, don't bother reading that carefully. Exit stage left now and go to a real online HTML learning centre cum tutorial like HTMLHelp or Tizag. Seriously. Even contemplating the idea of writing HTML in a word processor is nuts. Why bother? HTML is plain text! Use a plain text tool, not something that, by design, will try and add formatting to your text.
Windows 3.x only allows three letters after the dot. MAC OS and Windows 95/98 allow four, or more. Your browser allows for both suffixes. It acts upon .html and .htm in the same fashion.
Uhh...your browser should read a file sent as HTML correctly even if it has a .numbnuts extension. That's a server-side setting, not a browser one. There's no hard and fast rule. If the server has associated the extension .dogsballs with HTML, then the browser (user agent) is meant to accept that as authoritative.
Anyhow, by now you should have a clear picture of the vintage of this advice. It was very much advice from its time, much like the advice given to parents once that circumcision prevented masturbation.
Go through the pages this Joe Burns dude has on HTML ( a week-long primer, mind you), but do try and keep an open and cheerful mind. Then pay it absolutely no attention at all.
Oh, take advantage of the slightly more up-to-date piece of scripting at the foot of each invaluable lesson and "send this page to a colleague". If that doesn't turn "colleague" into "gibbering idiot", nothing will.
End of nincompoop entry