Tutorial 1
Web Development Perceptions
Entering this class, I had little to no idea what I was really getting myself into. Reflecting over the basis of why I'm even in school, I suppose I would have to say that it has a lot to do with wanting to move on in my life, wanting to get a strong foundation in something that I like, and learn new, and fascinating things, that have to do with things that I already loved to begin with. Beginning html, specifically, the only thing I really, and truly, expected from this class was that I would learn a little about how web pages were coded. I've been around others that could code before, and I found it interesting, and yet very confusing at the same time.
After the first couple days of class and lectures, without having played with Expression Web at all, yet, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, that this class would be the end of me. I had no idea what I was doing, and worse, I lacked confidence in accomplishing anything of worth in it. My basic perception of web development was that it wasn't something to be taken lightly; it was a serious subject, in an ever-changing enviroment that has evolved mostly in the time that I've been alive, and has already taken huge jumps in advancement and speed. So, I sat down, read part of the book, and began working through the first tutorial.
By the end of the first part, I had a completely new appreciation for web developers, and people that spent a large portion of their time coding. And, I found out, I truly enjoyed it. Getting into it was rough, and hard, but once I was in, I very much liked it. I liked to see what a few lines of text could accomplish, and looking at the changes in the assignment, that I had typed and done (albeit with direction) I was proud of the things I had done. I began to look forward to more.
There are a lot of careers open for people that know how to code, and a lot of options that I am beginning to see in front of me. While I still main focused on my primary goal of returning to school for the purpose of getting a job in computer arts and animation, I am glad I'm learning other things as well. I'm not entirely sure where life will lead, and it's lead me on several strange and unusual paths already. This could be the start of a new one.
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Tutorial 2
HTML History
Links. Lots and lots of links. Though, realistically, links are what make the internet the internet, and make it convient and easy to use. Being able to do them was pretty fun, even if it was just in tutorial situations. I find myself liking HTML more and more the more we learn about it and the more we do in it. Even such things like image mapping were fun; the more code I learn, the more I like it, and find it enjoyable.
HTML itself has evolved greatly since it first came to be. Four revisions. More to come, obviously. The first version contained 20 elements, 13 of which are still in use in HTML 4. In ten years, we went through three versions of HTML, until HTML 4 was published in late 1999. The W3C stepped in in 1996, and have been maintaining HTML since then. In the year 2000, HTML 4 was accepted as international standards for web desgin. HTML 4 is known for following the SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), progressing more and more towards this with the advancement of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) enhancing HTML. HTML 5, published originally in 2008 as a working draft, has yet to be published as the new standards, and while it closely resembles SGML, it has abandoned any attempt to be a SGML application, defining its own HTML serialization.
XHTML was originally published in 2000, as a W3S recommendation. XHTML is a seperate language that began as a reformulation of HTML 4 using XML (Extensibile Markup Language). XHTML 1.1 was released in 2001 and included minor changes to XHTML 1.0 Strict. It could be customized, for one. XHTML 2.0 was never brought to a standard, and was a seperate language than XHTML 1, and so never gained popularity. XHTML 5.0, which is an update to XHTML 1, is being defined alongside HTML 5, included in the HTML 5 draft.
Early mistakes with HTML cannot technically be called "mistakes". The developing process of HTML jumped from basic formatting with a few elements to a webpage to extensive customization within a few short years. The speed of progress made with HTML was astounding, and after having come under regulation by the W3C, we have evened out and made serious developments. The future of HTML will continue to advance, especially once HTML 5 becomes standard, and HTML 6, and 7, and so on and so forth go into development. With the rate that technology is progressing, HTML has fallen a little behind, but I believe, personally, that it's still amazing, still changing, still goign to be here, for a long time to come.
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