Learning HTML

When I was in junior high, my gifted class teacher was always trying to make her students into amateur computer programmers. In 1996, she thought that computers were The Future (and she was right, of course), so she thought that all of us smart little kiddies should go out into the world and become rich computer programmers. She made us all spend one period a week writing DOS programs on an ancient green screen Apple computer.

It looked something like this.

I staunchly repressed any memory of this time of my life, except for how much I hated it.

But I've been learning HTML for a few weeks now, and, surprisingly, I sort of love it. HTML stands for "HyperText Markup Language," and it's the language that most Web pages are written in. If you've never messed with it, it sounds really impressive and complicated and fancy, but it's really not. It's fun and pretty intuitive, once you know the basics of the language.

I like learning HTML for a few reasons. First, the book I'm using is great. Charlie recommended it: it's called Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML. It teaches you all the basics of HTML, CSS, and XHTML, and it does so with lots of exercises, frequent repetition, plenty of diagrams, and a writing style that's humorous and casual.

The awesome Head First HTML book I'm using.

The Head First books are supposed to be "Brain-Friendly" and to make learning a new programming language intelligible, fun, and easy. Fortunately, their system is definitely working for me--I'm actually remembering everything I learn from week to week (which is more than I can say for all those history classes I took in high school).

Second, learning HTML makes me appreciate the complexity of the Internet. I've used the Web for so long that I take most of it for granted. But the more I learn about HTML and the quirks of Web browsers, the more I respect the people who make really good Web sites. To write a good Web site, I think that a programmer has to be both compulsively detail-oriented and capable of planning ahead and seeing the big picture. It's hard to do, and they definitely get paid well for a reason!

Third, learning HTML is a completely different form of mental exercise. I'm used to crafting words into texts that are flexible and depend on themselves for their internal logic. For example, there are no rules about what makes a good poem; the only rule is that each word and line in the poem must contribute to the whole, that each part must follow the rules and structure that the poem creates for itself. So poetry (and most forms of writing) is about relative harmony, not correctness.

My HTML for one of the Head First exercises.

Writing HTML, on the other hand, is about perfect correctness according to what the Web browser expects. Every element and tag has to be correct and without typos (leaving out a single < or " or = or / can make a whole element fail!). It's strict, and I love that. I enjoy it in the same way that I enjoy doing math: it doesn't come easily to me, but it does make me think in a new way, which gives my mind a healthy workout.

Fourth, I love the excitement of loading a new page into my browser. I never know if it's going to look right or not. I type a change into my editor, click the save icon, open the page in my Web browser, and then wait with baited breath: Will it load? Will the images appear? Will the link be active?

One of my Head First projects. Each image is a thumbnail that links to another page.

Having a page open perfectly is kind of a rush. It's like magic: you write this file that looks like a jumble of half-words and symbols, but when the page loads, it transforms into a real live Web site. I love it, and Charlie (who works full-time as a Web developer) says he feels the same way when he tests a site for the first time.

Right now, I've only made exercises out of the Head First book, and I haven't dabbled in style at all. But who knows? Maybe one day I'll get to experience to rush of making an entire Web site that's functional and pretty!