This week was all about HTML! So far I think I’ve had a pretty good handle on it (if you ignore my attempts to add text over images), but there are some concepts that still confuse me. As we got deeper into Jen Simmons’s HTML tutorial, some of the concepts were a little harder to grasp, and they still confused me a bit when I tried to use them in practice. The most apt example of this is adding images that have different resolutions based on the viewer’s browser. I honestly haven’t even tried to experiment with that because I don’t have a good grasp of it yet.
Another aspect of HTML that caused me confusion was how to tell the difference between a newer element that has an opening and closing tag versus an older one that just has an opening tag. I know it’s kind of a small thing to be confused about, but it always sits in the back of my mind when I write HTML. I haven’t run into any problems with this yet but when you’re going with the flow and just writing how are you supposed to tell the difference between an element that needs a closing tag and one that doesn’t? Is it something that I end up learning over time or is it supposed to be intuitive?
Despite this confusion, I am excited to begin working on the Verification Quest project. I think actually going in and getting my hands dirty working on this project is going to help me understand HTML as a whole a little bit more. I have a couple of ideas for how to approach this project in terms of what my “misinformation” is, but in terms of design, I think that I need to first get a little more comfortable with HTML and CSS and how they work together.
I implied above that Jen Simmons’s HTML tutorial caused some confusion for me. This isn’t technically completely true. The tutorial was very helpful in terms of teaching me the basics of some of the most important elements in HTML. However, where I had some trouble was in the images and resolution section as I said earlier.
I think that once I am able to get more into doing practical things with HTML and CSS I’ll be able to grasp some of these concepts better!
Comments
2 responses to “HTML…? ”
Hi Bailey! I’m totally with you in your confusion with a few HTML features. Text over images sounds very ambitious! Best of luck with that. Jen Simmons was losing me towards the end of the lessons, too. I understood the basic idea of what certain features were trying to accomplish, like the differently sized images, but I did not understand how to execute them at all. I would like my HTML to be accessible to everyone, but I’m afraid I’ll break everything if I try to get too technical. I also totally get your confusion about closing tags! I was wondering the same thing. Hopefully putting closing tags where they’re not needed doesn’t really mess anything up. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
On your topic of learning HTML, I agree completely with your issues with syntax. It is just one of those things that is really hard for me to get and it forces me to write HTML at a much slower pace then what I would like. I also agree that I am excited about Verification quest. I decided to pick a much easier topic then the one for my How-To guide so that way I can focus my efforts on experimenting with HTML and CSS. I also agree that the tutorial was super helpful in getting a grasp on what to find and where, but I do believe that it is expected that we will have to do alot of work outside of the tutorial in terms of syntax and troubleshooting.