Crys Odenkirk
Teaching HTML as a Second Language (HSL)
…is hard.
A major project I’m doing right now at work involves teaching HTML/CSS and (and probably Javascript) to an audience of mixed knowledge-levels.
Now, I’ve got a lot of experience explaining things in context and answering questions for people of different levels of computer literacy. And I used to tutor students in Math, Science, English and other languages, and I taught Art privately for awhile. So no problem, right?
Trying to condense an entire introductory class into a couple hours and make it both appropriate AND useful to all different skill levels and then use it to contrast against the html/css/javascript being written by a tool provided by a vendor? Ouch.
I’m thinking that it might be best approached as exactly what it is: a foreign language. It has its own alphabet. Its words are elements, and it most definitely has its own rules of grammar. The doctype tells a browser what dialect you’re speaking in (html and xhtml are about as different as American and Britsh English, for instance).
Smoke Bomb
Three Trumpets
Three Trumpets
Would it have been so hard to put it on your website?
If you are offering a download of any kind, state the terms right up front. I don’t know about you, but I am leery of downloading anything whose status I have to guess at. It makes me concerned that the code or product has the same lack of attention to detail.
There are many kinds of download. Is it free for all time? Just a trial? A Beta? Will clicking “download” kick you without warning to a page where you think users are going to blithely put their credit card numbers and addresses in? Don’t leave your readers wondering. If a user has to go to google to find out this information, you better have a damn good, unique, exceptional product or they probably won’t come back for the download.
Note, this is not related to the SuperPreview post right before this one, though Microsoft could stand to pay attention to this advice with regard to SuperPreview as well.