[HN Gopher] Show HN: HTML for People
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: HTML for People
Author : blakewatson
Score : 589 points
Date : 2024-10-10 17:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (htmlforpeople.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (htmlforpeople.com)
| ErikAugust wrote:
| One additional book recommendation: HTML and CSS, the Good Parts.
| henning wrote:
| This is great. I love you how started with a tiny HTML file and
| didn't immediately ask the user to install NodeJS and VS Code and
| a ton of other webdev shit.
| autoexec wrote:
| This is a lesson that a lot of professionals could stand to
| relearn. They don't actually need hundreds of MBs of JS to
| display basic text and images. Accessibility and failing
| gracefully are way too often ignored.
| divbzero wrote:
| I love the order of tutorial, starting simple to deploy something
| first:
|
| 1. Use Notepad/TextEdit to create a plain text _index.html_.
|
| 2. Deploy _index.html_ to Neocities or similar.
|
| 3. Add content with headings and images.
|
| And only then going back to:
|
| 4. Make it proper HTML with <head> and <body>.
|
| 5. Upgrade Notepad/TextEdit to Visual Studio Code.
| have_faith wrote:
| You're probably already aware, but <html>, <head> and <body> is
| optional in HTML5, so it's a "proper" document without them.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Isn't doctype still required by the spec in HTML5 in order to
| be "proper"? Perhaps I'm mistaken but I thought I remembered
| that it's technically 'required'.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| It enables quirks mode when missing.
| wild_egg wrote:
| The only elements that are absolutely required are doctype
| and a non-empty title. Most minimal valid HTML doc:
| <!DOCTYPE html> <title>Foo</title>
| sureIy wrote:
| Correct.
|
| Fun fact: you do not need to close most tags in a valid
| HTML5 document.
|
| This is valid: <!DOCTYPE html>
| <title>Foo</title> <p>paragraph <p>second
| <ul> <li>item </ul> <table>
| <tr><td>hi! </table>
| sureIy wrote:
| It is, but I'd argue that _people_ wouldn 't even notice
| that the document is in quirks mode.
|
| I think you'd really only want a TITLE tag so that it
| appears as a tab name. Anything else is really optional for
| _people_ and you 'd only really need BR, A, and IMG
| aardvark179 wrote:
| Why, "Start coding already!" rather than something like, "Start
| writing already?" I think half the barrier to people building
| sites is that they think they need to know how to code, and that
| seems scary, but they do know what they want to write, and that
| seems more approachable.
| blakewatson wrote:
| OP here. Oooh that's a good suggestion. Yeah it's hard to shed
| the webdev persona and see it through fresh eyes--even though I
| specifically tried to do just that!
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| "Start typing already"
| xnorswap wrote:
| "Start creating already"
|
| People don't want to be _typists_ either, they want to be
| creators.
| blakewatson wrote:
| I went with "Get started already" :)
| mightybyte wrote:
| I think the fundamental approach being taken by this project is
| immensely valuable to the world. This kind of education about
| open standards might actually be the most powerful tool that can
| help us take steps in the direction away from giant opaque
| corporations and back towards the systems based on open standards
| that the internet originated from. I really hope this project
| continues to be updated and get more and more eyes and
| contributors. If you feel the same way, I'd say at least throw it
| a GitHub star. https://github.com/blakewatson/htmlforpeople
|
| (Note: I have nothing to do with this project thus far and have
| nothing to gain from saying this.)
| otteromkram wrote:
| Mozilla has amazing documentation that's been around for years.
|
| Here's their basic html tutorial section:
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML
|
| No one is or has been stopping people from learning HTML.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Super approachable. (sure Jan meme.gif)
| Diti wrote:
| That's the website my high school used in engineering
| sciences classes to give students an introduction to HTML.
| I don't see the point of your comment (I think it's
| sarcasm, but I'm not even sure), can you be a little bit
| more constructive?
| dartharva wrote:
| The point may be that OP's guide is not meant for high
| school/engineering students, it is meant for _everyone_.
| MDN 's "introductory" sections have too many big words to
| be of use to laypeople.
| thenameless7741 wrote:
| As a technical person who recently taught myself frontend
| from scratch, I found https://web.dev/learn way more
| structured and thorough. The CSS lesson covers all the
| essentials and actually made me enjoy working with CSS.
|
| web.dev doesn't get as much love as MDN, but it totally
| should!
| IshKebab wrote:
| HTML for People is _waaaay_ more approachable than this. My
| wife could follow the HTML for People tutorial. It shows you
| how to create a real web page in a real browser without first
| bogging you down in coding details.
|
| The MDN tutorial is talking about img alt attributes before
| you even create a single .html file! That's how to put people
| off.
| blakewatson wrote:
| OP here. I appreciate the kind words. Yeah, I hope it finds its
| way into the hands of non-professionals.
| dartharva wrote:
| Will you add on to it to include custom CSS, or maybe a
| section for using different CSS templates (and where to find
| them), to make a slightly larger website like your own
| (blakewatson.com)?
| blakewatson wrote:
| No I think I will probably keep it focused on HTML. I think
| my "CSS basics" chapter is as far as I want to go with
| styling. But I would love to see other folks publish easy-
| to-understand CSS tutorials.
| Theodores wrote:
| ::backdrop was useful to me. Right now I am learning the last
| two years of stuff, refreshing my frontend skills. Things
| like scoping are a dream come true.
|
| I haven't got all the way through it, but seeing the contents
| drop-down made me feel at home.
|
| I put document structure first so the content looks good with
| no styling and no class attributes. I use no divs, just the
| more sensible elements. Sections, Articles, Asides and Navs
| work for me. There should be headings at the start of these
| elements, optionally in a Header and optionally ending with a
| Footer. The main structure is Header - Main - Footer.
|
| Really there should be a need to keep it simple, and that
| begins with the document structure. It is then possible with
| scoping to style the elements within a block without having
| to use any classes except for at the top of a block.
|
| It infuriates me that we have gone the other way to make
| everything more and more complex. We have turned something
| everyone should be able to work with into an outsourced
| cottage industry. Nowadays the tool chain needed for frontend
| development is stupid and a true barrier to entry. Whenever
| you look under the hood there is nothing but bloat.
|
| My approach requires strict adherence to a document
| structure, however, my HTML content is fully human readable
| and the content looks great without a stylesheet, albeit HTML
| 1.0 pre-Netscape looking.
|
| Tim Berners Lee did not have class attributes in HTML 1.0 but
| he did want content sectioning. Now that there is CSS grid it
| is easy to style up a structured document. However, 'sea of
| divs' HTML requires 'display: contents' to massage the
| simplest of form to fit into a grid.
|
| I feel that a guide is needed for experienced frontend
| developers that are still churning out 'sea of div' content.
| In the Mozilla guide for 'div' it says that it is the element
| of last resort. I never need the 'div' because there is
| always something better.
|
| The CSS compilers are also redundant when working with
| scoping and structured content. Sadly my IDE is out of date
| so I have to put the scoping in at the end as it does not
| recognise @scope. Time to upgrade...
|
| Anyway, brilliant guide, in the right direction and of great
| interest to me and my peculiar way of writing super neat
| content and styling.
| crabmusket wrote:
| I really hope so too. I really wonder what would happen if
| there was an alternative like... instead of spending X dozen
| hours learning how to use WordPress, or MS Word for that
| matter, people (in the general population) felt like spending
| those X dozen hours learning HTML was a viable and useful
| alternative to achieving their goals!
| simonw wrote:
| This is great. The decision to skip CSS by depending on
| https://simplecss.org/ is smart - CSS is a whole other thing, and
| having that on top of basic HTML would be pretty intimidating.
|
| I did worry a bit about https://htmlforpeople.com/zero-to-
| internet-your-first-websit... - "Step 1. Create a folder on your
| computer" - because apparently a large number of people these
| days don't understand files and folders at all!
| https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc...
|
| Not sure how best to approach that though. Having a whole chapter
| of the book explaining files and folders feels pretty redundant.
| Maybe there's something good you could link to?
| acheong08 wrote:
| It's crazy how bad the mobile epidemic has gotten. There are
| kids coming into a Computer Science degree that can't figure
| out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get
| downloaded to. (Fwiw, those I know dropped out before 2nd year)
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| My dad was asking me a question about backing something up
| onto Google Drive, or saving space on some cloud storage
| account, or something.
|
| He was using the mental model of files and folders -- that
| files exist and refer to stored bytes, and that there can be
| one or several copies of a file. There can be links to a file
| that take very little space relative to the file.
|
| I had to tell him that I have no idea what sort of storage
| model these services expose, if any, and that the concept of
| a file system backed by a storage device is not the analogy
| that applications expose to their users these days.
|
| He eventually understood, but I could feel his frustration --
| that the mental model he had was really just chosen by a past
| moment in application design, and that what replaced it is
| nebulous and disempowering.
| username135 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what you told your father?
|
| When i use google drive, the interface appears to be
| folder/file structure. Whether it is or is made to look
| that way is irrelevant, i suppose, as long as it works that
| way. I can also increase storage by downloading/deleting
| things so Im a bit flummoxed.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| I don't remember if he was trying to save space on his
| Google Drive or on his phone. His question was, mostly,
| that if he deleted files in one place, where would the
| space savings appear? I immediately thought of Windows'
| OneDrive and how it's sort of an automated rsync setup. I
| didn't know enough about his phone, which apps he was
| using, or about Google Drive to give an answer better
| than "I don't know, and I detect that some of your
| assumptions are probably wrong."
| NavinF wrote:
| I grew up before cloud storage was mainstream, but I
| never thought the new model was confusing.
|
| - Google Drive caches recent files and downloads other
| files on demand. Just like iCloud Drive, MS OneDrive,
| etc.
|
| - Deleting files will free up space on your Google
| account.
|
| - Clicking the "clear offline files" button will free up
| space on device.
|
| All these offering are quite similar with just a few
| extra features here and there
| layman51 wrote:
| In my opinion, Google Drive is basically the same as the
| traditional file structure. Where it gets very confusing
| for people is when it comes to collaboration. Before 2020
| or so, there was confusion around copying the same Google
| Doc so it appears in multiple locations, and making
| shortcuts to it instead. Look up stuff around the "Shift
| + Z" keyboard shortcut if you want to learn more.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Google drive uses the same storage quota for other
| services like Gmail and Photos, these aren't visible from
| the drive directory structure
| mr_toad wrote:
| > the interface appears to be folder/file structure
|
| It might look that way, but it doesn't have the same
| features.
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/compare/the-difference-between-
| block-...
| peterkelly wrote:
| Google drive follows the files and folders model that your
| father was expecting.
| Suppafly wrote:
| It gets confusing when you use all google services
| though, because while google photos technically use your
| drive space, they aren't really exposed that way. Android
| generally gives you a warning that when you delete a
| photo that it's also being removed from your cloud
| storage too though. But google photos will also
| constantly prompt you to let it delete your local copies
| and only have the cloud copies, so you end up having no
| idea what they are actually doing. Just drive itself is
| pretty straight forward though since it's mostly separate
| from the phone and deleting from the phone has no bearing
| on what's on drive, unless you deleting from within the
| drives app itself.
| psnehanshu wrote:
| Come on! Google Photos is not confusing at all. It is
| very clear on what it does, but I may be biased.
| IIsi50MHz wrote:
| Try enabling Google Photos to automatically upload images
| from multiple devices to the same account.
|
| If Google Photos is low on space, try deleting from
| Google Photos without causing it to delete from all other
| devices. Seems to require manually copying all those
| files to an untracked folder, then deleting from Google
| Photos.
|
| Try managing which folders Google Photos syncs:
|
| When it asks to add a newly found folder, the app doesn't
| give any way to find out where that folder is or what's
| in it, unless the folder's name only occurs once on the
| device.
|
| Try removing folders from the app ("Whups, didn't mean to
| backup all the graphic assets of a random app that
| foolishly doesn't use 'nomedia'!"), where the folder name
| is not unique. It again gives nothing more than folder
| names and no indication of where they are or what's in
| them.
|
| Try getting Google Photos to list where every file first
| came from, so you know where the originals are (for
| various reasons).
| mch82 wrote:
| It's ridiculous how complicated it's gotten to answer my
| parents' questions about stuff like this. The old desktop
| metaphors are gone. Screens are difficult for older eyes to
| read. Every app has a cloud service. Really seems like huge
| step back in usability.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Screens are difficult for older eyes to read._
|
| For my Dad, we got him a "simple phone" - it basically
| does calls and texts, has big buttons in pretty much the
| style of old Nokia phones but chunkier. The screen is
| larger and higher resolution than those, so the text is
| nice and clear. It works really well for him in terms of
| being able to cope with it with his eyes and getting the
| job done.
|
| _> Every app has a cloud service_
|
| And that phone doesn't run apps at all... For things
| beyond calls and texts1 he uses a laptop, largely keeping
| with the files/folders metaphor and no extra apps.
|
| ----
|
| [1] managing his banking, certain shopping though he
| often instead asks one of us to do that as he is wary or
| falling into scam sites, facebook for more passively
| getting news on what family a-far is getting up to, his
| collection of digital photos (he used to take a lot), and
| such
| tiffanyh wrote:
| It can be even worse.
|
| I've seen younger generation only use Google Docs and
| streaming services (music/video) and not even understand what
| a "file" is, because everything is just on the internet.
| al_borland wrote:
| Doesn't Google Docs stores its files on Google Drive? What
| do they call the things they open to open an existing doc?
| Suppafly wrote:
| It does, but the file structure isn't really exposed
| unless you go looking for it. You mostly just work off
| your recent files and such.
| ukuina wrote:
| > What do they call the things they open to open an
| existing doc?
|
| Still Google Docs? Many people use docs.google.com daily,
| but they have never visited drive.google.com
| vundercind wrote:
| I didn't know that, and I've used docs about as long as
| it's existed and used to use drive a little years and
| years ago.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Calling it an "epidemic" isn't really helpful. The reason
| there's this shortcoming isn't because it's some problem
| inherent to those darn kids, it's because the state of
| computer education is expect them to just figure it out on
| their own when they have no need or reason to do so.
| bartvk wrote:
| I'd say half of my first-year CS students don't know how to
| create a folder with files, at the start of the school year.
| To me, it's nuts. But on the other hand, lots of students are
| very curious and come to learn. You can't blame them for not
| knowing something.
| giobox wrote:
| I try not to get overly-annoyed at this kind of thing too,
| but to me it just demonstrates an incredible lack of self-
| drive, or curiosity, especially in the CS domain.
|
| If the students are genuinely curious, there is nothing to
| stop them learning about pretty much any topic in CS -
| really. There are few university subjects where the entire
| syllabus is freely available online in almost every format
| imaginable the way CS often is, and very often the computer
| _you already have_ works just fine to learn it on.
| dockd wrote:
| To keep that line of reasoning going, what is the purpose
| of the university, if you're supposed to learn everything
| on your own?
| james_marks wrote:
| I know this is sarcasm, but--
|
| Network building, external proof of ability to work, and
| a place (and just as important - a time) to translate who
| you are into who you want to be.
|
| These were always the reasons, the rest you learn on the
| job.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Ya, I have to agree. Although you may learn, it's clearly
| not the primary intention of a University to teach
| anything but your ability to do whatever it takes to
| score well or do publishable research.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >To keep that line of reasoning going, what is the
| purpose of the university, if you're supposed to learn
| everything on your own?
|
| It's not that you have to learn everything on your own
| though, it's that if you enter a program without having
| some understanding of the basics, you're going to have to
| pay to take a bunch of remedial classes.
|
| It'd be like going for a mathematics degree when the
| highest class you took in high school was algebra, where
| the normal degree students would be starting with Calc 3
| or Differential Equations. You might be ok in the major
| or you might not, but you don't even know enough to start
| on the path at that point.
| lmm wrote:
| That's exactly why I switched out of CS and did a degree
| in something that was harder to teach myself
| (mathematics).
|
| I'm a programmer now, but I don't think finishing the CS
| course would've helped much with that.
| dspillett wrote:
| A good CS course isn't really about programming in that
| sense. A CS degree is to programming what a maths degree
| is to, say, statistics methods, or at least it should be.
| You are expected to learn the "hum-drum details"1
| yourself (perhaps with guidance of course) or already
| know some of them, with the course exploring wider or
| deeper concepts (the why, wherefore, and therefore, of
| those details).
|
| Your maths degree probably did as much as a CS degree
| would have done (expanding your ability to learn, analyse
| & problem solve, etc.) allowing you to learn the
| technical details of programming on your own. CS was
| essentially birthed from a branch or two of mathematics,
| after all!
|
| People who want/need a programming course (which is
| perfectly valid, I don't mean to denigrate the position
| in the slightest) are probably not best served by a
| traditional CS degree.
|
| --
|
| [1] "hum-drum" sounds a bit too negative for what I was
| intending, but my brain isn't firing on all cylinders
| this morning and I can't think of a better term for what
| I was thinking there!
| vundercind wrote:
| CS has always been a lot more like the arts/music than
| most other majors, in this regard. If you don't come in
| with _way_ more knowledge about and skill with computers
| than the median college-bound high school graduate,
| you're gonna have a bad time.
|
| It's kinda shitty, but for a long time PC gaming as a
| gateway drug for young kids let universities just assume
| a fat pipeline of already-computer-savvy applicants.
| skydhash wrote:
| Access to mentors, books, peers, and recognition after
| graduating?
| bo1024 wrote:
| Are you sure they have a computer (i.e. something with a
| keyboard and a filesystem that it is possible to write
| and run programs on) at home?
| lukan wrote:
| It is way harder, as those devices seemed designed for
| consumption, but also with smartphones and tablets, one
| can get under the hood.
|
| (Hurrey for Termux)
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| You wouldn't expect someone with no experience on a
| normal computer to manage to get under the hood of a
| modern smartphone os.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Computers existed before keyboards and filesystems, and
| likely they will continue to exist after both are
| obsolete.
| II2II wrote:
| In some respects, a modern mobile phone has more in
| common with minicomputers than minicomputers had with
| computers before keyboards and file systems. Being able
| to interact with computers in a meaningful way
| transformed computers from programmable calculators and
| data processing machines into something entirely
| different. I would imagine that more people have seen
| those archaic computers in museums than during their
| service life simply because there was no need to interact
| with those computers back in the day. Even a web
| developer has more direct control over a server in a data
| centre than most early programmers had over early
| computers. (At least those used in businesses. Computers
| used for research were a different story.)
| skydhash wrote:
| That's the easiest thing to get ahold of. You can find
| them for cheap on ebay.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| When I was a kid, this wasn't something I could afford or
| that my parents were willing to pay for. I did oftentimes
| use the library computers, but they were locked down (of
| course, half the fun was finding ways around that.)
|
| I was very lucky that my middle school (in a fairly low-
| income area) was given a grant by NASA that allowed them
| to supply all of us with laptops during the school year.
| I surely wouldn't be where I am today without it.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >I'd say half of my first-year CS students don't know how
| to create a folder with files, at the start of the school
| year.
|
| I learned CS ~20 years ago and it was mostly the same. Half
| of the first year is people that are vaguely interested in
| computers, video games, or heard it was a good way to make
| money, and didn't really have any real skills going into
| it.
|
| It is somewhat different now, because there are students
| that think they are good with technology but really have no
| idea how things work, they just think they know because
| they are slightly better than their peers at using phones
| and tablets.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| I'm probably old, but we used to learn DOS prompt basics
| (and folders and files and stuff) in what would be the
| equivalent of junior high school in the US. And not in
| special courses, it was "normal". Heck, I was even
| introduced to Microsoft Basic at school while in the
| equivalent of 4th grade on these funny Thomson MO5
| computers.
|
| But that's not what they are taught now. They are taught to
| use social media and cloud services, which is completely
| useless since they figured this out themselves already.
|
| The education system here just keeps them early in a
| consumer mind state. It has absolutely no ambition and is
| just a race to the bottom.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| At one point, every member of a CS program started without
| having ever seen or touched a computer. Everyone has to start
| somewhere. We do not reject new biology majors because they
| had never touched a microscope before entering the program.
| Novosell wrote:
| The difference is that these days the people are surrounded
| by computers and probably interact with a computer many
| hours every day, yet they are barely more tech savvy than
| that first lot who had never seen a computer before.
|
| But so it goes when society moves forward.
| mckn1ght wrote:
| Sure, but I think the typical path for those who survive
| and strive in a CS program is to have touched a computer
| for the first time _well_ before starting work on a college
| degree for it.
|
| That's like trying to learn a foreign language by picking
| reading War and Peace in that language, without ever having
| seen a single translation to that language, or having
| already read War and Peace in your own. There are a lot of
| steps you need to take before then.
|
| I would also be pretty surprised if a biology undergrad had
| never touched a microscope, possibly with the exception of
| the most impoverished among us. I imagine most people have
| tried one at some point along the K-12 journey, and there
| are more introductory treatments of e.g. life science on
| the way as well.
|
| Starting CS without having "seen or touched" a computer
| would be like a biology undergrad who wouldn't be able to
| tell you whether a dog or a tree is a plant or animal.
| brailsafe wrote:
| If you're saying that at one point in history, a given
| cohort of new CS students had never seen or touched a
| computer, I have my doubts, but it depends on how you
| define CS program. Before computer science was a formalized
| education stream, it had a variety of other names like
| "Business Computing" or something related to information
| technology, but you'd have to go pretty far back imo before
| you find a whole classroom of entrants into such a program
| that had never seen or touched a computer. By the time it
| was called CS, I do find it a bit of a reach that you'd
| find less than say 10% of students opting into taking it
| without that low bar being passed.
|
| Likewise the biology example seems strange; sure _maybe_
| people haven 't used a microscope specifically (unlikely
| imo), but they very likely have used any number of other
| implements and taken at least one secondary school biology
| course
| Suppafly wrote:
| >We do not reject new biology majors because they had never
| touched a microscope before entering the program.
|
| No but you'd presumably make them take some remedial
| classes that the mainstream students wouldn't be required
| to take. Or maybe not, I'm not sure how it works in
| biology, but in the harder STEM majors, you're generally
| expected to have some basic knowledge beyond what the
| 'easy' track at high school required for graduation.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's also just what people are familiar with and had to
| learn.
|
| I know incredibly competent web developers who don't know
| what SSH is or how to use it. Boggles my mind, but I grew up
| with it so it's what I'm used to.
| ordu wrote:
| _> can 't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out
| where files get downloaded to._
|
| I have issues with that. FF doesn't show the path in the list
| of downloads. There is a button to start a file manager, but
| I have no file managers installed, so button doesn't work. In
| some cases I didn't find the better way than to copy the link
| and to download again with wget.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| If you don't have a file manager on your system chances are
| you can figure out where downloads are going to.
| ordu wrote:
| Well, I manage it sometimes, but I then I forget how I
| did it. I think the way to do it, is to try to download
| something with ff again, but stop at the file chooser
| dialog to figure out where it points to.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| You can configure FF that it will ask you each time,
| where you want to save the file.
| necovek wrote:
| I've been hacking at computers for almost 30 years, and I
| cannot figure out where a file gets downloaded to on a mobile
| (Android) phone.
| chronogram wrote:
| That sounds really difficult for you. It's just a
| "Download" folder on my device, just like in most operating
| systems since the '00s.
| necovek wrote:
| My apologies, what I meant was "saved" to. Different
| applications have different default locations without
| ever prompting for it. I did figure out where FF mobile
| downloads files.
|
| But attempting to save an attachment (from Telegram,
| WhatsApp, Viber...) and then either open it or attach it
| from another program leaves me perplexed. I generally
| rely on "share with" to avoid this, but I am guessing not
| all apps register proper MIME types or detect them
| properly so the option I need doesn't show up every time.
|
| I guess the fact that I mostly moved from DOS to Linux
| never really got me away from thinking about files and
| directories, and inconsistency in Android really bothers
| me.
| accrual wrote:
| I get your frustration, that was an inconsistency I
| disliked about Android too. I felt like it was fairly
| normal for "power users" to have an 3rd party file
| browser with more functions to help manage the files on
| the phone.
|
| One thing I appreciate about iOS is there's a Files
| app/UI, and if your app wants to save some user-facing
| data, it can go into the Files app. From there it's a
| simplified Explorer/Finder type file browser. It's not
| perfect but its consistent to me.
| jcynix wrote:
| >I guess the fact that I mostly moved from DOS to Linux
| never really got me away from thinking about files and
| directories, and inconsistency in Android really bothers
| me.
|
| Been there too. After some (maybe a lot) investigation I
| learned that this "inconsistency" in Android happens,
| because some apps use "private" directories which you (or
| other apps) aren't allowed to look at. Think of these as
| directories of user Linux users who turned off read
| access for others, i.e. "chmog og-r $HOME"
|
| After finding apps like Solid Explorer and especially
| Termux, I learned to comprehend what's going on. But I
| still hate it that apps (and Android) prevent me from
| looking at my data the way I like to do it. For "security
| reasons" I not allowed to view things on my devices?
| Sheesh!
|
| Nice apps like Markor or Diary (from Bill Farmer) store
| their data in user visible directories. As such apps
| exist, I tend to ignore those with limiting my access.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Mm, that's not exactly true. Having done a bit of Android
| development, these days you're rarely operating on a
| "home directory" structure like you might be familiar
| with from Windows, Linux, etc. Instead you're saving
| files to a "container" filesystem that's exposed to the
| user in a few facets: Downloads, Photos, Music, etc.
|
| What's even more confusing is that some apps save images
| directly to the "Gallery" which is separate from the
| "file and folder" view you get otherwise. So (as an
| inaccurate example), Fujifilm's app might download
| directly to your "Camera Roll" while GoPro's app might
| create a "GoPro" directory to dump photos/videos in,
| which offers more separation but doesn't appear in the
| "Photos" app by default.
|
| Some apps even have toggles to switch between these two
| methods of saving files - though if I recall correctly,
| the non-Gallery/Camera Roll method (while desirable to
| many users) of saving images has technically been
| deprecated for a while.
|
| You can read more here:
| https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage
| treflop wrote:
| With all due respect, it's not like your average person who
| drives all the time knows how their car works at all either.
| tdeck wrote:
| This feels more like an apprentice mechanic not knowing
| what neutral is.
| khafra wrote:
| It _should_ be like a physicist studying Carnot Engines
| not knowing what neutral is; but for some reason Computer
| Science degrees are also expected to be developer
| certificate programs.
| rectang wrote:
| > It's crazy how bad the mobile epidemic has gotten.
|
| It's crazy how well mobile's robust security model has
| protected the suddenly computing masses.
| theoldways wrote:
| We need freedom, not paternalism. And yet, somehow, despite
| this nanny state utopia, my data gets leaked approximately
| once every 17 minutes. Security my entire ass.
| asoneth wrote:
| > The decision to skip CSS by depending on
| https://simplecss.org/ is smart
|
| I was always a little disappointed with how most web browsers
| choose to render HTML pages that had no explicit styling
| information. I'm not necessarily saying web browsers should
| have defaults as opinionated as simple.css, but the default
| page margins, padding, text styles, headings, etc that they
| picked aren't particularly attractive.
|
| Opinionated web developers will override the defaults no matter
| what they are, but if the convention was to have more
| attractive defaults I wonder if that would have resulted in a
| larger share of personal websites and blogs created using plain
| HTML.
| simonw wrote:
| That's a historic artifact. If a browser shipped new default
| CSS today it would break 30+ years of existing web pages.
| MrVandemar wrote:
| Hyperbole. It wouldn't "break" all the web pages, they
| would simply render differently.
| california-og wrote:
| There's a lot of sites between pure html and modern css.
| "Simply" rendering things differently would definitely
| break a lot of sites. Just imagine if browsers started
| defaulting to *{box-sizing: border-box;}.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| They should have brought in nicer rendering with one of the
| HTML versions, or with a flag.
| asoneth wrote:
| Oh absolutely, that ship has long since sailed, it's just
| me lamenting a world that could have been if something
| closer to simple.css or tufte-css had been the norm.
|
| Though with "reader mode" becoming more popular I wonder if
| there's a place for a browser with more opinionated
| defaults.
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| There's a reason why the CSS ["reset"][1] is still with us -
| the lower level user-agent stylesheet never really adopted
| any of this stuff. Presumably, this was to reduce the delta
| between browser engines (vendor prefixes, etc, etc.) but it
| would be nice to see _some_ movement in this area.
|
| [1]: https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
|
| As you point out, people who care will use some of the
| defaults and override others as they go along, but a small
| bit of effort goes a long way: html, body {
| margin: 0; padding: 0; } body
| { line-height: 1.6; -webkit-font-
| smoothing: antialiased; } img, picture,
| video, canvas, svg { display: block; max-
| width: 100%; } input, button, textarea,
| select { font: inherit; } p,
| h1, h2, h3 { overflow-wrap: break-word; }
| BirdEBird wrote:
| Good article, but the reason is obvious: When opening an app or
| a web app stopped opening a new document and started to present
| a list of recent documents, that was the beginning of the end.
| If someone wants a file, they open the app for that file and
| scroll down. They have never needed to make sense of a file
| existing independently of the app in which it was create and
| may be viewed. This process was cemented by iOS's absence of a
| file manager.
| divbzero wrote:
| The Android Files app has always allowed access to local
| files, and the iOS Files app has allowed access to local
| files since 2019.
|
| https://www.cultofmac.com/news/files-app-makes-ipad-more-
| mac...
|
| However, neither of them are typically used in mobile UX
| patterns.
| jachee wrote:
| The five years since then haven't been enough time to
| change 12 years of behavior.
| cryptoz wrote:
| > the iOS Files app has allowed access to local files since
| 2019
|
| Huh. I just opened my Files app on my iPhone 12 and went to
| On My iPhone (which was 2-3 more taps once arriving in the
| app). I don't see many of my files though, just a few. Some
| PDFs and a Spotify folder. But I don't see my pictures
| there? Or are pictures no longer stored as 'files'? Or do
| you mean that the app has allowed access only to _some_
| local _user_ files? It 's not all local files. And it's not
| all non-system local files. And it's not all user files. In
| fact it is missing > 99% of my user-space files
| (specifically ones created with default-OS applications on
| device, by the user).
|
| And if I make a Note in the Notes app, will it show up as a
| file in the Files app? Probably not, I would guess. Because
| the note probably isn't really a file anyway. So pictures
| aren't files, and notes aren't files. What would a file be
| then? Are files only PDFs? That's the only thing that shows
| up for me. I guess PDFs are the only things that are files
| then!
|
| Super confusing experience. I'm a mobile app developer by
| the way - on Android. Android sucks at this too of course.
| But the iOS Files app is much too limited to enable users
| to 'get' the concept of a file.
| jwagenet wrote:
| Photos taken on the camera, shared to you, or "saved to
| photos" will live in the Photos app. The files app
| primarily contains things you download from your web
| browser, including images downloaded and not "saved to
| photos" and images extracted from zip, etc. I guess some
| apps can save data there too. It would be nice if there
| was a back road to images stored in Photos app via Files
| app, but the distinction is otherwise well defined.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Aha! So _some_ photos are actually 'files', but some are
| not! The confusion continues! I get why Apple has it this
| way - current iPhones are very very popular and selling
| them with the current UX makes Apple a lot of money.
|
| But it's pretty clear that the Files app is not meant -
| in any way - to help users understand computers, what
| files are, etc. It is obtuse and confusing as soon as the
| user wants to leave the iOS ecosystem (even to go use a
| Mac).
| nox101 wrote:
| you're jumping to conclusions. One does not follow from
| the other.
|
| (a) apple doesn't show users all the files on their
| iPhone
|
| (b) apple makes lots of money
|
| There is no evidence that a causes b. It's possible
| showing the files would make them even more money. It's
| also possible showing the files would have no effect on
| how much money they make.
| doix wrote:
| My girlfriend had the craziest workflow. No laptop, only
| iPhone and iPad Pro. She had an external USB-C hard
| drive, she couldn't connect it to her iPhone but could to
| the iPad.
|
| What she would do is airdrop photos from her iPhone to
| her iPad. Copy them from the gallery to the Files app.
| Move them in the files app to the hard drive. Then delete
| them from the gallery app, delete them from the Files app
| and the trash.
|
| For some reason, deleting files in the Files app didn't
| free up space on the iPad. So she had to uninstall and
| reinstall the Files app to get the space back.
|
| As a Linux user that grew up DOS, the whole thing just
| broke my mind. She was frustrated and I was frustrated I
| couldn't help her.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Android's filesystem is borderline incomprehensible.
| Outside of accessing external storage I have done by best
| to avoid browsing files.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Ios files is a useless nightmare. Most of the stuff that
| exists on the phone isn't exposed through it.
| rapind wrote:
| > apparently a large number of people these days don't
| understand files and folders at all!
|
| And here I am shaking my fist insisting these are "directories"
| not "folders"... ;)
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| This fundamental understanding is a widespread disease I've
| had to argue with people--some of whom should know better but
| allow it anyway.
| IIsi50MHz wrote:
| I was first introduced to "directory" as a type of signage
| at malls or clusters of shops, listing where things are.
| Usually also having a map, with a red triangle labeled "You
| are here.". Then I learned that telephone books could also
| be called be called directories.
|
| My first exposure to computers that had a file hierarchy
| used the term "folder". When I eventually encountered
| "directory" in computer usage, I was confused because I
| thought first of signage in malls.
|
| It still "feels wrong", so I usually use "folder". (-:
| sureIy wrote:
| Other than "directory came first", what's the reason why
| something is a "directory but not a folder"?
| badsectoracula wrote:
| The distinction probably came from Macintosh though it was
| more pronounced in Windows 95 - also it is the other way
| around: something can be a folder but not a directory.
| Classic example would be the "Computer" (or "My Computer")
| in Windows which is a folder but not a directory. The
| Windows Shell maintains some sort of VFS that exposes
| these.
|
| Generally a folder is a directory-like thing that groups
| file-like things but not necessarily mapped to real on-disk
| directories and files - and more often than not, it is
| exposed via GUIs rather than command line applications. Of
| course that is just common use not anything inherent -
| after all on Linux it is common to expose stuff via the
| filesystem (sometimes in addition to VFSs) that still uses
| the terms directories instead of folders with the only
| difference for when one is used or the other to be if it is
| done via a command line application or a GUI application.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >don't understand files and folder
|
| It may not go over well but I don't think this is some
| generational thing. Its just plain pure laziness that has
| become epidemic.
|
| >Joshua Drossman, ..the laundry basket where you have
| everything kind of together, and you're just kind of pulling
| out what you need at any given time," he says, attempting to
| describe his mental model.
|
| >I try to be organized, but there's a certain point where there
| are so many files that it kind of just became a hot mess
|
| Yeah.....need I say more? Other than gross. I think those
| statements prove my point better than I can.
|
| Like most on HN I'm extremely computer savvy and I've yet to
| find a way to avoid dealing with file/folder models and I've
| tried. All other ways fall apart no matter how "advanced" they
| are. Maybe it will change with LLMs but so far there is no way
| for the computer to anticipate what you do/don't want and
| organize for you.
| blakewatson wrote:
| Yeah, I think you're right about that. I'm not sure whether I
| want to write something of an appendix myself and link to it,
| or find something else on the web and link to that.
| maeil wrote:
| > I did worry a bit about https://htmlforpeople.com/zero-to-
| internet-your-first-websit... - "Step 1. Create a folder on
| your computer" - because apparently a large number of people
| these days don't understand files and folders at all!
|
| I'm probably around the average age on HN, so I grew up with
| early Windows. Yet after years of trying and failing to get
| into different note-taking/productivity apps, I finally found
| inner peace by using Obsidian and embracing the exact millenial
| "laundry basket" approach the article talks about. Maybe 10% of
| my notes are in a folder, the other 90% all together in the
| root. Turns out what mattered was 1. the lowest possible entry
| barrier to writing a note and 2. speed.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| It's not a problem, consumers won't even edit a wiki, that's
| just what consumers are.
| graemep wrote:
| As someone who is involved in a community run wiki, people
| will say "that page is wrong" and when you say "please edit
| it" will say "its too hard" or "I do not have they time".
|
| They will, however, write a long Facebook comment explaining
| what is wrong and explaining that they cannot edit a wiki.
| AlienRobot wrote:
| I'm happy to see more people recommending Neocities :D
| al_borland wrote:
| I see far too many tutorials starting with git and GitHub,
| which is going to lose a lot of people and really not important
| on day 1.
| messo wrote:
| I have tried so many times to convince non-technical people that
| they can put together their own website quite easily, but so
| often they think I'm joking and that it requires a lot of effort.
|
| Next time I'll refer the to this site and ask them to give it
| half an hour and see what they can create in that time. I know
| that so many would get hooked if they just get that first taste
| of "wow, i just published something on the actual web!"
|
| @blakewatson: Any plans to add i18n to the site and accepting
| pull requests for translations?
| blakewatson wrote:
| Yes! I would love that. I need to update the readme, but I
| think my strategy would be to place translated chapters in a
| subfolder, (eg, "/es"). I can configure Eleventy to generate a
| different nav menu based on the subpath.
| al_borland wrote:
| Schools should really be doing this. I had to make several
| personal websites in high school and college, that were just
| HTML and maybe a little CSS (or just old HTML styles). This
| should be everyone's first step, imo. It's a great way to write
| something and see results quickly and easily. It doesn't even
| need a server.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| I love the idea and I'm thrilled to see more sites like this out
| there. But I do think this assumes a level of computer literacy
| that isn't consistent with typical, non-technical users.
|
| Step 1 starts with:
|
| > Pick a location on your computer and create a folder. Call it
| my-site or something similar.
|
| You've already lost the vast majority of people right here. There
| are a shockingly large number of people out there that use
| computers EVERY day that won't know how to do this.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I suspect even a majority of HN users visited the page on a
| mobile device, and were not in a position to immediately follow
| the instructions.
| Novosell wrote:
| Android allows you to create directories.
| Retr0id wrote:
| As does iOS, but the instructions given were for a desktop
| device.
| prmoustache wrote:
| So what? It is mentionned in the introduction that it is
| meant for computer users:
|
| "What do I need?
|
| You need a computer with internet access. I wrote this book
| in a generic way so that it would be applicable for people
| using macOS, Windows, or Linux. If I point you toward
| software to install, it will be free (or have a usable free
| tier) and will be cross-platform (or I will offer platform
| alternatives)." https://htmlforpeople.com/intro/#what-do-i-
| need%3F
| IshKebab wrote:
| So? How many people are editing HTML on their phones?
| blakewatson wrote:
| OP here. Yeah, I was a bit worried about this, and even though
| I kind of mentioned it in the introduction, I think it deserves
| more attention. I'm not sure if I want to write something and
| host it myself, or maybe just point people to some kind of
| primer on creating files and folders.
| globular-toast wrote:
| If you're concerned about this I think the only solution is
| to get feedback from your audience somehow. Watching someone
| try to follow the instructions can be enlightening. I
| personally doubt it's that bad, I think people know how to
| create folders, but I might be wrong. If not, directing them
| to "<os> for dummies" might be a good move.
| dschuessler wrote:
| These two videos were the best resources I could find to
| bring people up to speed on this topic:
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-EID5_2D9U
|
| 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGd48PGbnBs
| dartharva wrote:
| It's weird seeing this getting emphasized over and again in
| this thread.
|
| > There are a shockingly large number of people out there that
| use computers EVERY day that won't know how to do this.
|
| That's very hard to believe. Even my mom, who doesn't use
| computers at all, would know what folders and files mean.
|
| The people who don't know what files and folders are - can't
| immediately be beneficiaries of this guide, right? They have a
| lot more fundamentals to cover before anything like this.
| prisenco wrote:
| As far as I've noticed, it's not older people who have the
| issue but younger. The average 22 year old today has been
| using mobile devices as their primary device for 10+ years.
| This is especially noticeable amongst poorer families, where
| a $20 a month low end financed android phone is much more of
| an option than a $300 computer.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| It's a bit of both, really. The typical computer or mobile
| user doesn't have general purpose computing knowledge or
| expertise. They don't know how their computer works or what
| any of the things in it ARE. They know how to follow a
| particular defined sequence of steps to get an outcome.
|
| I worked over the phone tech support for a few years about
| 20 years ago, and it really opened my eyes to how far the
| gap is between the tech literate and everyday computer
| users.
|
| I think this guide is terrific, for what it's worth. I just
| also think there's a lot more people out there that this
| guide SHOULD help, that it won't, because of that
| fundamental gap.
| prmoustache wrote:
| But they manage files and folder on their smartphone too.
| pieterbeulque wrote:
| Anecdotally, I don't know anyone that uses files on their
| iPhone, and I don't really understand it myself either.
| prmoustache wrote:
| When you take a picture, and watch it in a gallery, you
| are accessing a file.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| My dad worked at NASA and built circuit boards that are
| currently in space.
|
| He got confused a few years ago because "how can you have a
| folder inside a folder? Only files get put in folders".
|
| Of course, he would not read this book.
|
| If someone can't figure out how to make a folder but wants to
| write HTML, they have a problem this book should t be
| obligated to solve.
| globular-toast wrote:
| If this is true then it's very sad. Is this what people have
| been reduced to? I would have been able to follow these
| instructions as a child (in fact I did build my own website
| when I was 10).
|
| Are you sure it's this bad, though, or are you not giving
| people the benefit of the doubt? How can it be this way? Is it
| due to people using cloud apps for everything?
| myaccountonhn wrote:
| It seems to be the case. See the other thread of people not
| knowing what a file system is.
|
| In the past tech education felt useless because teachers were
| so far behind, maybe it's time to revisit now because now the
| younger generation is far behind.
| stego-tech wrote:
| We sorely need more of this. HTML was the first language I
| actually understood (although BASIC was my first ever), and left
| me feeling empowered to carve out my own survival on the
| internet. While layering CSS and Javascript aren't bad decisions
| on their face, I do think they combine to create a steep barrier
| to entry for most newcomers as they're believed to be "Core" to
| the language of HTML itself.
|
| Kudos to the author(s) for the site. I'll have to add it to my
| arsenal as a "next step" for folks who want something more custom
| than WP/Ghost on PikaPods w/ a theme, or who just _really_ want
| to be totally independent.
| al_borland wrote:
| I think CSS and JS should be things the user graduates to when
| they decide they need them, if they ever do.
|
| Show someone basic HTML and most people will eventually look at
| their page and think, "this is neat, but how to I make this
| title red and change the background?" This is when to introduce
| the very basics of CSS.
|
| If someone has a goal the learning process is easier and more
| exciting, because it's relevant and allows them to learn
| something to give them a result they already want. Learning to
| learn is hard.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I think teaching all 3 at once is better. You can take a
| really simple vertical slice to demonstrate how they interact
| to compose the DOM. Then, spend the next 2 weeks inside dev
| tools explaining how to navigate the DOM and browser state.
| Establishing mapping between dev tools and the examples is
| where self sufficiency becomes feasible.
|
| I agree you can pretty much get there with plain HTML
| academically and in concept work, but this is not a helpful
| (or exciting) perspective for someone who is likely to be
| tasked with building non-trivial sites for others. A little
| bit of color and movement can go a long way in keeping the
| apprentice's attention.
| al_borland wrote:
| If we are talking about non-technical people simply making
| documents for the web, I don't think they ever really need
| to know what the DOM, dev tools, or state is. They'll never
| really run into that, as the sites will be rather trivial,
| and that's ok.
|
| For someone looking to be a web developer, I can see where
| some would need a faster ramp up to hold their interest,
| but they should also still know that it can be this simple.
| I saw a video not long ago where someone asked a bunch of
| people who just finished a web dev bootcamp to make a basic
| HTML file and put it on the web, much like what this
| tutorial does in the first couple steps. Most of them
| couldn't do it. If someone can make a page using React, but
| can't make a simple HTML page, I think that's a problem. It
| leads to a lot of overly complex solutions, because they
| were never taught how simple it can really be.
|
| Even for technical folks, their area of expertise may fall
| outside of the web, but they still want a web page to share
| information. The basics are perfect and often used. Dennis
| Ritchie's page was a perfect example of that. A lot of
| people from this era have similar sites.
|
| https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/
| stego-tech wrote:
| I'm not sure we want to onboard non-technical people into
| such things right off the bat. Keeping things simple -
| notepad and HTML - gives everyone the ability to carve out
| a rudimentary niche for themselves, which is the goal. If
| they're still interested in this field - either just as a
| hobby, or as a career - then they'll at least have a solid
| understanding of the foundational topic and know where they
| want to go from there.
|
| Remember, the goal isn't to make everyone a competent
| developer, just enabling everyone to participate without
| going through a corporation for basic web services.
| card_zero wrote:
| Party like it's 1999: <BODY
| BGCOLOR="#FF00FF"> <FONT COLOR="#FF0000"> <H1>My
| First Heading</H1> </FONT>
|
| https://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.html
| jimbosis wrote:
| I plan to dig in deeper, but this looks like a great introduction
| to building websites.
|
| I teach a one semester high school Web Design class and currently
| use a mixture of lessons from these two for learning the basics
| of making pages by hand with HTML and CSS:
|
| https://internetingishard.netlify.app/
|
| https://www.washington.edu/accesscomputing/webd2/student/ind...
|
| This looks very promising and could supplant or at the very least
| supplement those.
| otteromkram wrote:
| Check out Mozilla's tutorials, too.
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML
| networked wrote:
| I have to say, for me, https://internetingishard.netlify.app
| has uncomfortably pale body text. It is #5d6063 on an #fdfdfe
| background where I sampled it. (The background is `linear-
| gradient(0deg,#f9fafb 0,#fff)`.) The serif typeface looks too
| thin on a low-res display.
|
| https://paste.dbohdan.com/internetingishard.netlify.app.1728...
|
| I think that if you want to lower the contrast of a dark-on-
| light page--well, first, don't lower it too much [1], but
| second, it is better to make the background darker than the
| text lighter. Avoid thin faded text.
|
| Here is a minimal edit to the page:
|
| https://paste.dbohdan.com/internetingishard.netlify.app-edit...
|
| This is #333 on an #f9f9f9 background (without the gradient to
| simplify things and with no change to the headings). I find it
| more pleasant to read.
|
| [1] https://contrastrebellion.com/
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| Would something like this work instead of using Notepad/TextEdit
| (at least at first)? Of course, this code could be made better...
| <textarea onkeyup='results.innerHTML=this.value'></textarea>
| <div id=results></div>
| hyperhello wrote:
| Oh yes, that is easy enough and it works fine. It can even save
| with:
| localStorage.setItem('text',results.innerHTML=this.value)
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| i had the same thought: https://github.com/gabrielsroka/gabri
| elsroka.github.io/blob/...
| debacle wrote:
| > I don't think websites were ever intended to be made only by
| "web professionals."
|
| I absolutely agree with this, in both directions - the tools we
| have kind of suck if the web WAS meant for professionals, but
| also that I remember learning HTML from tutorials in 1995, and
| back then there wasn't much of a difference between a good
| website or a great website except that a good website used a
| table based layout and didn't have prev/next navigation.
| al_borland wrote:
| Thank you for being one of the few people who realize TextEdit on
| the Mac supports plain text. The number of "experts" who say it
| doesn't support it and tell people to download some other app
| drives me nuts.
| amanzi wrote:
| I still remember creating my first html page back in the 90s. It
| felt really magical creating it with just Notepad - changing the
| bgcolor of a page to red or blue or whatever, was amazing.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Same here; I stumbled on HTML for the first time in the '90s. I
| started with HotDog from the CDs that came in the magazines.
| https://brajeshwar.com/2024/hotdog-sausage-software/
| krapp wrote:
| I still remember sitting in my school library being blown
| away by framesets the first time I saw them.
| sova wrote:
| HTML is not for people
| krapp wrote:
| I mean, HTML is a plain text format, it was literally made for
| people to write, and people wrote websites with it, by hand,
| for years. Literal children with almost no technical skills
| taught themselves to do it.
|
| There was a time when it was easy. Even Javascript was easy.
| All of this stuff was made for people, but we've abstracted it
| away so only machines ever touch it and what used to be easy is
| now a dark art.
| sova wrote:
| You think something that starts with "less than exclamation
| point" is made for people? "less than exclamation point minus
| minus" ah yes it just rolls off the tongue. HTML was clearly
| designed to add "semantic web" to the existing text data of
| the internet, no matter the cost to human readability. If
| it's "made for people" it's only in the roundabout fashion
| that eventually it gets hidden away by the interface to
| change the font color, etc.
| krapp wrote:
| Human beings are capable of dealing with abstract forms of
| expression other than natural language. Musicians deal with
| music notation. Stenographers write in shorthand.
| Mathematical notation. No programming language with its
| brackets and parentheses "rolls off the tongue" either but
| human beings nevertheless write code. HTML is just one such
| abstraction, concerned with adding markup and hyperlinks to
| a digital simulation of a paper document.
|
| HTML is "made for people" because it's a text-based markup
| format intended to be edited by people when designing a web
| page, simple as. If it were made for machines it would be a
| binary bytecode format. It isn't because it's meant for
| human beings to read and write. And human beings are
| capable of reading it and writing it.
|
| I don't know what to tell you. This is simple,
| straightforward fact, but you seem weirdly offended by the
| mere premise.
| sova wrote:
| <!-- strong disagree --> All I'm saying is that if you
| were to make a semantic markup of English today, would
| you really want to use keyboard-convenient glyphs just
| because it's hardware-convenient?
|
| What would be the best way to add markup to English? It
| seems like an unexplored question. And if we were to
| explore it, we would find many alternatives, ranking much
| higher on the "for people" scale than HTML.
| krapp wrote:
| >All I'm saying is that if you were to make a semantic
| markup of English today, would you really want to use
| keyboard-convenient glyphs just because it's hardware-
| convenient?
|
| HTML is not a semantic markup of English, it's a semantic
| markup of digital text documents. Yes, you would want to
| use keyboard-convenient glyphs to express this markup
| because the keyboard is the primary means by which a
| human inputs text into a computer, which itself is the
| primary means by which HTML documents are viewed. Also
| because HTML operates primarily within the context of
| typography, in other words, because the data that HTML
| marks up also consists of keyboard convenient glyphs. It
| only makes sense to use text glyphs to describe the
| transformation of text glyphs within the context of a
| textual medium of communication.
|
| Even Markdown is essentially the same thing. There's
| little real difference between surrounding a word in
| asterisks versus <strong> or <b> tags to denote bold
| text, other than aesthetics.
|
| >And if we were to explore it, we would find many
| alternatives, ranking much higher on the "for people"
| scale than HTML.
|
| Like what? Interpretive dance? Arcane gestures? Singing
| the markup into being?
|
| People have been using written language for thousands of
| years, representing written language with type for
| centuries, and using keyboards as an interface for
| generating text since long before computers were
| invented. It all seems to work just fine for many people.
| I'm curious what you think would be better.
| famahar wrote:
| I love making stuff like this accessible for many people. Giving
| it a quick read and while I do find it more readable I think you
| can still lose people when you define terms. More fun analogies
| and simple silly (non technical looking) pictures could really
| help a concept sink in faster. Great work overall though.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| A few months back, someone asked for suggestions on which new AI
| options to learn to beef up his marketing career. I told him to
| learn HTML first. That will be useful for a long time and will
| likely last his lifetime. After that, he can start learning
| others.
|
| I even x-ed it at
| https://xcancel.com/brajeshwar/status/1812149514632925525
| eviks wrote:
| > It's for anybody, the way documents are for anybody. HTML is
| just another type of document.
|
| You don't ask anybody to learn XML tags to edit a Word document
| in a plain text editor even though it's technically possible.
| Similarly, HTML is not "just another type", but one of the many
| poorly designed (especially so if CSS is added) document formats
| that no non-tech "anybody" should be exposed to
|
| WYSIWYG is for anybody.
| jraph wrote:
| You need to learn WYSIWYG "codes" and "language" too. It's just
| that you probably already did so. "Select, then click on the B
| button to make it bold", or "click B, type, then click B again"
| is probably not straightforward at first.
|
| I don't know why people shouldn't be exposed to markup.
|
| I also don't see how HTML is a poor format. It has its issues
| but fundamentally? Seems fine.
|
| It's cool someone tries to make it reachable to more people.
| eviks wrote:
| First, it's not a "just", but a huge benefit for the audience
| of "everyone"
|
| Second, it's much more straightforward vs any tags (and
| remembering having to close them without any help in your
| plain text editor)
|
| And is also much more discoverable in the intuitive interface
| with the full list of available styles right there with
| styled buttons so you don't need to think whether <u> is
| underline, underscore, or something else entirely.
|
| That's the whole point of why this can't ever be for
| "everyone" - it requires too much knowledge that's not
| generally useful.
|
| But yeah, with such a trivialization of the effort required,
| you'll never understand why people shouldn't be exposed to
| markup.
|
| > It's cool someone tries to make it reachable to more
| people.
|
| Not unless he misleads them
| crabmusket wrote:
| I'd really like for there to be a WYSIWYG editor that works
| on HTML, something the level of complexity of like WordPad
| (which can make RTF files). But supporting the full range
| of HTML tags like <details>, <table> etc.
| jraph wrote:
| > Not unless he misleads them
|
| and
|
| > trivialization of the effort required
|
| I don't believe this is what's happening though.
|
| Yes, that most people already know WYSIWYG has value, of
| course. And it takes effort to learn. But people can see
| for themselves if it's for them. Nobody is forcing anyone
| to do anything. Most likely, people even starting to read
| this are probably ones who are already a bit curious or
| interested in this.
|
| This is for people would could be thinking "HTML is code,
| it's impossible for me" when really they can understand and
| like. This things tells them "look, it might not be as
| complicated as you might be thinking. Try and see for
| yourself".
|
| I don't see the drawback of doing this actually. I don't
| see the harm. However, I see value in making people realize
| that computers are not magic and that they can leverage
| them in other ways, and putting such tools within their
| reach.
|
| So yeah, maybe not _anybody_ , but probably many more
| people than one could think (professional or not).
|
| It's also easy to underestimate people (ourselves included)
| and to think code like HTML is too complicated to
| understand for most people. It's actually not. Most people
| would understand the basics quite easily and making them
| realize this is quite nice.
|
| What do you have so special that _you_ could learn HTML?
| Nothing, actually. And it is quite important to be aware of
| this.
| eviks wrote:
| > So yeah, maybe not anybody
|
| So don't make misleading claims it is for anybody
|
| People can see for themselves, but if they're not mislead
| they can see it earlier without wasting time. Do you see
| time waste as a drawback?
| jraph wrote:
| Anything can be seen as wasting time. Why this
| particularly?
|
| Life is a huge waste of time.
|
| > So don't make misleading claims it is for anybody
|
| Nothing is for literally _anybody_.
| blakewatson wrote:
| Yeah the implication that I guess I didn't make well
| enough is that it's for anybody who wants to learn it.
| It's attainable without needing highly specialized or
| intensive training.
| jraph wrote:
| Well done! I really like how you make people write bare text,
| publish it and bam, that works, just like this, and how you ease
| into html.
|
| The text is very well written, straightforward, welcoming, well
| structured. It seems easy and enjoyable to read.
|
| I believe that putting html in non professional hands is a good
| goal.
|
| Some feedback:
|
| - About <meta charset="utf-8">, it seems to be introduced quite
| late. People comfortable with English but wanting to write their
| website in their own language might be surprised. Or even people
| with accents in their names (you are putting your name in the
| title, people will probably try this). You also say that it's for
| special characters like emojis, but you should probably say it's
| essential for most languages that are not purely ASCII (event
| English with words like cliche). Maybe you could introduce that
| earlier and say that it's there for historical reasons and that
| without it, you may have issues with characters. To be checked
| but it might be better to put it before <title>.
|
| - body, head, html tags are mostly useless, except for html
| because of the lang attribute (accessibility + some browsers
| incorrectly offering to translate)
|
| - vscode is a bit unfortunate because of the telemetry part, and
| seems quite heavy and complex for the task. On Windows, notepad++
| is a great option. On Linux, any default text editor that's
| already installed will do. There's always codium, which is code
| without the bad parts. The intended target doesn't know about the
| bad parts, so they are installing spyware without knowing.
|
| I didn't know about the aria current page feature, I'll start
| using this.
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| > People comfortable with English but wanting to write their
| website in their own language might be surprised.
|
| A main complication here is that people don't even know about
| character encodings, so you can't reasonably expect them to
| save index.html in UTF-8 in the first place. (For example
| Windows notepad would use the active code page by default.) I
| agree that it should be featured prominently if that saving
| issue can be also addressed.
| voxic11 wrote:
| As of Windows 10 1903 the default encoding for Notepad is
| UTF-8. I think its reasonable to expect relatively modern
| systems to default text to UTF-8.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| Don't you actually need to set something in the text editor to
| save it as UTF-8 in the first place if you are going to put
| that tag? Wouldn't Notepad for example use UTF-16 by default
| like the rest of Windows?
| globular-toast wrote:
| This is how I learnt to program as a kid around 1997. My dad
| taught me to do exactly this. I didn't have it up on Neocities,
| though, in fact I didn't put something on the public web till
| years later, should've done it sooner! So I just had my own
| little website with multiple pages that were meticulously
| maintained.
|
| However, I did become quite lazy and would never have continued
| maintaining it as raw HTML. I discovered PHP which gave me
| superpowers, but it is quite a paradigm shift. I wish I knew
| about static site generators sooner.
| pif wrote:
| Uhm, this post looks based on a flawed premise:
|
| > Imagine if Word documents were only ever created by "Word
| professionals."
|
| But they are! OP explain how to create websites using basic text
| editors, and nobody is able to create a Word document using
| simple text or binary editors, apart from maybe a handful of
| gurus in Richmond.
|
| If you really want to democratize HTML, an HTML editor is what
| you need. Otherwise, your teaching site will not attract much
| more people than any other teaching site.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| > Step 1. Create a folder on your computer
|
| I don't need to read farther than this, I'm never going to
| recommend this over freecodecamp. Let alone that a lot of people
| are usually on mobile during learning time, it just makes it too
| scary, too easy to mess up, too hard to share what you are doing
| to get help.
|
| I 100% believe online sandboxes are the way to teach coding to
| people who aren't already comfortable with technical problem
| solving.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I strongly disagree, someone who create a web site or learn to
| program needs to know the basic of the basic of using a
| computer
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| it's not about knowing the basics of using a computer, it's
| about eliminating the possibility of tiny mistakes like 1
| typo in a file name causing _everything_ to break, which can
| put someone off coding forever
| ickelbawd wrote:
| If making one mistake is enough to put one off forever then
| they're really not going to like programming which is just
| a sequence of writing bugs and fixing bugs. :)
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| > tiny mistakes like 1 typo in a file name causing
| everything to break, which can put someone off coding
| forever
|
| One typo in your math or chemistry homework will quite
| likely give you the wrong final answer, but hopefully that
| wouldn't "put you off science" forever. Otherwise none of
| us would be here as I'm sure we have all made hundreds or
| more.
|
| Are we not expecting students to be resilient and solve
| problems anymore? One of the Common Core standards that
| used to be on the classroom wall was "persevere in problem
| solving." I say it's great for students to make a few easy
| mistakes like forgetting a semicolon to get in the habit of
| reading error messages and troubleshooting while they are
| still straightforward to fix.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| The important context here is that this book is not "HTML
| for programmers," it's "HTML for people who are probably
| pretty damn scared about the word HTML right now"
|
| In this case, the single most important thing is *early
| successes*. Kids spend years learning about the number
| line and what is the difference between + and - before
| they ever do 2+2=4. Or if they learn 2+2=4 first, it's
| just some abstract syllables they were taught to parrot,
| and they probably don't understand.
|
| For a new programmer, who is ALREADY SCARED OF
| PROGRAMMING, the single most important thing is early
| successes. If they can make something work on their first
| attempt, without realtime help from a friend fixing their
| mistakes, they are SO much more likely to have the needed
| self-confidence to keep learning.
|
| For a concrete example, every time I teach regular
| expressions to people I say, `cat` is a regular
| expression! Let's search for `cat` in `catastrophe` and
| turn "regex" mode on! Congrats, you have now written and
| used your first ever regex!! And this goes over SO well.
| It's SO much better than trying to start out with a
| symbol, because I give them an initial win that they
| achieved and that they were able to do. And if they get
| stuck later, they can always go back to knowing that
| `cat` is a regular expression and search for `cat` in
| `catastrophe`. And if it doesn't work, there's a
| different problem.
|
| In other words, not only is giving people an early
| success like this good motivation, it's also teaching
| them the negative control that they'll use for the rest
| of their programming careers, even if they don't know it.
|
| "Make a file on your computer" is not useful by itself.
| It's not a negative control. It's not an early success.
| It can be learned later, once you have the other things.
| theoldways wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I learned on a garbage Windows 98 machine
| when I was like... seven, and I actually got quite far
| without someone padding the entire computer and
| handwringing about f*cking _typos_. My god, what happened
| to this industry? Yes, learning is hard! Sometimes you make
| mistakes! That is how you learn! This is why my coworkers
| submit garbage pull requests full of obvious errors,
| because they've been coddled to death and never allowed to
| accidentally typo a directory name. Christ...
| prmoustache wrote:
| So basically you want to train a generation of copy/paster who
| don't understand what they are actually doing and who will
| never actually deploy anything because it is scary.
| theoldways wrote:
| Hey, at least those of us who can actually hack it will never
| run out of messes to bill time and a half to clean up!
| theoldways wrote:
| Should we get rid of the keyboard, too? After all, it's so
| complicated.
| worble wrote:
| >Alternatively, you can launch your browser first, click File >
| Open File..., then navigate to your index.html file.
|
| Uh, I don't think browsers have had the File toolbar for a long
| time, I just checked to make sure I'm not crazy and Firefox and
| Chrome on my system certainly don't.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| I just tried Firefox, Vivaldi, Brave, Safari, Orion They all
| have File->Open File ...
| Toorkit wrote:
| Sometimes they don't show up until you press Alt, but they're
| there.
| darkdrog wrote:
| this is a great tutorial even for experienced programmers, many
| of them even don't understand the nature of website behind the
| coding , but this tutorial leads a wise way to illustrate this
| concept
| lemonberry wrote:
| This is great, but most people don't care about coding or
| building their websites for scratch. Most people don't work on
| their own cars. Authors don't bind their own books.
|
| People want to share their thoughts, stories, and photos. In my
| opinion, we need better tools to allow people to create their own
| sites without needing to code.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah I agree that is true for most people, but there are also
| people who _do_ want to code their own website from scratch,
| and for them this is a really good introduction.
| sureIy wrote:
| While you're right, I like to think that people, especially
| kids, would greatly benefit from _seeing_ this stuff once or
| twice in their lifetime. They don 't need to learn it or use
| it, but they will forever recognize it. And maybe one day
| they'll have to write that closing tag someone forgot.
|
| This can be applied to all topics. Knowing the basics of
| everything is better than knowing nothing.
| theoldways wrote:
| People who don't care can continue to not read the things they
| don't want to read. But those same people should be prepared to
| pay money for someone else to care for them. This is not a new
| situation.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Is HTML ever actually defined in the beginning of this book?
| There's a reference to what the acronym expands to when tags
| start getting introduced but the chapters before this never come
| out and say "HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and here
| are three sentences that very briefly explain what _that_ means;
| we'll be exploring that in much more detain in the coming
| chapters."
| egypturnash wrote:
| I'm getting downvoted for this question but I think that is a
| pretty important thing to be getting out of the way in a book
| for someone who might not know what the heck HTML is, and why
| they might want to learn it!
| brianzelip wrote:
| Here's a great podcast episode with the author about "home cooked
| apps", https://shoptalkshow.com/609/
| WhiteOwlEd wrote:
| With OpenAI and other LLMs, web development is accelerating. For
| example, I put together a AI call center demo (
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7mI_qRrhE ) by using Open AI
| o1-preview. There I could take a lot of different files on
| typescript and backend server stuff written in python. I would
| add logs into the mix to make one massive prompt, and then I
| would let the AI work on reasoning in the cases where I needed to
| accelerate the writing of additional code.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Don't coding LLMs kind of fill this gap? I can't imagine anyone
| who isn't a pro wanting to spend time learning HTML when they can
| just describe what they want in plain text and get something good
| enough.
| jamiedumont wrote:
| This is a brilliant endeavour and incredibly well executed! I'll
| certainly be bookmarking it to share with others.
|
| I've recently decided to start adding to my website with just
| hand-written HTML, and slowly migrating the back catalogue. I
| love its directness, its ability for ad-hoc changes to a page and
| its robustness. After trying almost every system for publishing
| on the web under the sun; I've concluded HTML is the right tool
| for the job, even if it means a little extra work up front.
|
| As a retired developer I'm happy to tinker with Rust or SQL or
| something embedded when the mood strikes, but when I want to
| write, I just want to write - and HTML kind of lets me do that. I
| think if more people saw HTML as a document to author rather than
| just a build target then we'd have a lot simpler systems. This
| mindset has resulted/allowed for a huge dumbing down of average
| computer/web users and huge headaches for developers. I can't
| think who all the complexity we've brought into the world serves
| 99% of the time.
|
| This resource might be one of the things that nudges us back on
| track.
| serverlord wrote:
| Someone should recreate HTML in Markdown just for fun.
| itohihiyt wrote:
| I think this is great, my biggest stumbling block is deploying
| what I've created. I have a domain and need a host. The paragraph
| about deploying only covers hosting by a service you can't use
| you own domain on (as far as I can tell). It mentions netlify,
| which I assume would be an option if you have your own domain,
| however their website talks about shit but tells you nothing.
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