BENEFITS OF KNOWING HTML

[www.dustyarlia.com]

Is there any benefits to knowing this language with all the web design software out there? I'm positive there is, but how much and what specifically.

[contrex]

There are many benefits to understanding hypertext markup language compared to relying completely on automatic HTML generating programs such as web design packages. Convenient though these programs often are, and tempting for beginners, they frequently generate extremely inefficient, bulky and hard to debug code.

Just Google for "dumb web design software".

I quote from a blog I found, "The top 5 dumbest things Web developers do today"

http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/dumb-web-design-2007/

(No. 1 dumbest thing was "JavaScript-based navigation systems.")

5. Use Microsoft FrontPage to make Web pages.

Web sites created with Microsoft FrontPage are a real developer’s worst nightmare. For starters, the software creates all sorts of proprietary Microsoft code that is not valid and bulky. When pages don’t look quite right (and this happens often), viewing the source code to debug is virtually not an option. In fact, weeding through the bogus Microsoft HTML is enough to make eyes bleed. If you create a Web site using Frontpage, you are assured one thing and one thing only– your site will need to be completely revamped sometime in the future.

(You can find plenty of rants about Dreamweaver too)

This brings up the point I am trying to make. If you don't understand HTML thoroughly, how are you going to debug a faulty page generated by a web design package? You won't know what to look for.

Many web design packages generate code that does not work well in all browsers. Stuff that might look OK in Internet Explorer could be broken in Firefox or Opera or Konqueror. If you don't know how to fix it, then you are stuck.

I am not saying that you should just design web pages using a text editor such as Notepad, (although many people do!), just that you will be more productive and get better results if you actually understand what is going on.

Furthermore, struggling to understand something complex is good for your brain and can be interesting as well. And it looks good on a résumé.

Finally, imagine you go to a job interview. "How's your HTML knowledge?" says the recruiter. "Oh," you say, "I know Front Page, and Dreamweaver, and I've used Coffee Cup".

Another person says, "I can code simple HTML using a text editor, I understand CSS, tables, php, and Javascript, and know how to use them efficiently. I can debug the output of web design software and fine-tune it for efficiency and speed"

Who do you think is going to get the job?

[Zylstra]

One other thing:
Dreamweaver and FrontPage cant do everything for you. You will definitely run into a lot of things that you want on your site that you cant make using a What You See is What You Get editor. (a WYSIWYG Editor)

For example:
If (on your server) you had a web application (like a calendar) and it had code to put the next 10 events on any page, and you wanted it get it on your home page, you are going to have to look at the code manually, and figure out where it should go, and then place it, and get it to work.

That, and when you learn HTML:
<lame sarchasm>you can understand jokes like these</lame sarchasm>


You might want to take a look at this guide:
http://www.computerhope.com/starthtm.htm

[contrex]

and these

<spelling>sarcasm</spelling>

[Bennie]

Ther is nothing wrong with the word ..."sarchasm" It's what happens when you drop into a hole.
It's like "Fees-able" that's when you can charge.

Sorry

[contrex]

...and "irony" is quite like "coppery" except it is attracted by magnets.