indigozeal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
indigozeal) wrote2015-03-25 09:37 pm
indigozeal) wrote2015-03-25 09:37 pm
Entry tags:
HTML problems
Due to the realization that my website looks desperately horrible, I have been taking an Udemy course on HTML & CSS, which is mostly a fantastic adventure into how much they've managed to break HTML since I first learned it in the '90's. Why, for example, was it decided that the "B" and "I" tags needed replacing? And why on earth were they replaced with "em" and "strong"? Why would you ever replace an abbreviation that was one letter long with another that's six? I Googled the issue and found this fascinatingly demented response that pins the issue on "semantics" (literary semantics, not comp sci semantics), how "bold" refers to ink on a page but there's no ink on a screen or something. HTML is a language for machines. Machines don't care about (literary) semantics. Machines do what they're told. It is entirely up to the programmers how a machine decides to interpret something. I see some answers are touching on accessibility issues, but none are really explaining the sticking point, or why webpage readers can be apparently programmed to understand the "em" and "strong" tags but not the "B" and "I" ones.
(ETA: I ran across one answer that claims webpage readers will simply note that "I" text is italicized but won't tell listeners if the text is meant to be emphasized, or if it's part of a title. But if you're reading the text, you're not explicitly told that, either. I have to conclude that the real reason behind the change is to provide the worst of the comp sci crowd with another opportunity to engage in their favorite hobby, yelling at plebes for failing to adhere to needlessly complex & arbitrary rules.)
What's the use of the "!DOCTYPE html" thing if the tag is written in HTML itself? Doesn't the format of the tag itself denote in what language it's written? How is the tag of use in denoting that the document is written in HTML if the program has to be reading the document as HTML in order to read the tag?
Why did we decide that we needed two separate tags to handle alt text? Why is the Udemy course teaching the one that Firefox apparently doesn't support anymore?
(ETA again: Apparently, some modern browsers use "title" for the text that appears if you hover over the image but the "alt" stuff for what appears directly on the page if the image doesn't load. But other browsers don't make this distinction and use "alt" for both. So what are you supposed to do, other than type the exact same text into two separate attributes like some gormless nitwit?)
Why do you need to "close" paragraph tags? Why is it advantageous to demand that paragraphs be "wrapped" in the tag instead of just using one to denote where you want a double space? You do understand that there are situations where you would want a double space in one direction but not the other, right? And why did HTML5 add a tag whose sole function is to denote the home address (like, the physical residential address) of the person who created the tag?
I can't wait till CSS.
.
(ETA: I ran across one answer that claims webpage readers will simply note that "I" text is italicized but won't tell listeners if the text is meant to be emphasized, or if it's part of a title. But if you're reading the text, you're not explicitly told that, either. I have to conclude that the real reason behind the change is to provide the worst of the comp sci crowd with another opportunity to engage in their favorite hobby, yelling at plebes for failing to adhere to needlessly complex & arbitrary rules.)
What's the use of the "!DOCTYPE html" thing if the tag is written in HTML itself? Doesn't the format of the tag itself denote in what language it's written? How is the tag of use in denoting that the document is written in HTML if the program has to be reading the document as HTML in order to read the tag?
Why did we decide that we needed two separate tags to handle alt text? Why is the Udemy course teaching the one that Firefox apparently doesn't support anymore?
(ETA again: Apparently, some modern browsers use "title" for the text that appears if you hover over the image but the "alt" stuff for what appears directly on the page if the image doesn't load. But other browsers don't make this distinction and use "alt" for both. So what are you supposed to do, other than type the exact same text into two separate attributes like some gormless nitwit?)
Why do you need to "close" paragraph tags? Why is it advantageous to demand that paragraphs be "wrapped" in the tag instead of just using one to denote where you want a double space? You do understand that there are situations where you would want a double space in one direction but not the other, right? And why did HTML5 add a tag whose sole function is to denote the home address (like, the physical residential address) of the person who created the tag?
I can't wait till CSS.
.