The week has run away and I’m trying to lasso it back in. Unfortunately, Jim was sick last Saturday and Sunday, and the writeup on Chapter 3 was delayed. I am keeping on track with our self-imposed schedule, but find I only have time to do the Head First readings on the weekends.
Before there was the HTML element, there was the typing element. Memories of high school typing class have resurfaced. 1984 or 85. We learned in a room with row upon row of IBM Selectrics and prop-up books of nonsense word strings. I’m not so bad with sentences, it’s the numbers and symbols on a keyboard that slow me down. Especially the unnatural actions of making my right middle and ring fingers bend down to key in those dratted angle brackets. Seriously, how do you web coders do it without losing pace or speed? There are so many of them required in this stuff!
Chapter 3, “Web Page Construction,” was a bit long. I tried to ignore some missing punctuation in the beginning (in the illustration on page 78), but I have very strong feelings about prime marks being called quotation marks (page 86). We learned the <q> and <blockquote> elements; the <br> element, which is like a soft return (shift + return); and 3 types of list tags.
…At which point I went off track and searched the web till I found this handy article on curling straight quotes. Straight quotes are a.k.a. dumb quotes, but they are in fact inch marks or double prime marks. Being able to make correct quote and apostrophe marks makes me happy. A friend has wondered how I will deal with the limitations of type on the web. Maybe I waited long enough to learn web that those limitations are minimal?
Block elements, inline elements, nesting. I’m glad the authors are emphasizing correct structuring. I am learning this and I like things that are logical, I just wish it didn’t take so long to actually write the HTML.
The angled brackets aren’t so bad, of course, I type them hundreds of times a day in CSS or in Ruby, so I guess i’ve got used to holding shift with the left and throwing out a ring finger to hit { and }.
With quotes you can also use " and most browsers figure it out. It’s typically easier than trying to look up each entity every time. You can also style the q and blockquote elements with background images that are a graphic of a proper quote. This works better on blockquote elements when used and styled as a pullquote.
Comment by John Athayde — March 6, 2009 @ 9:38 AM
Yah, those inch marks bothered me too. I’m trying to tune that out. I read the chapter last Sunday on the road back from West Virginia, but I honestly can’t remember what it was about. I need to refresh before I start on Chapter 4. It all made sense though.
OK, it’s coming back to me — segregating different parts of information, like quotes and inline quotes, and the difference between inline and block elements. I’m kind of drooling with anticipation, I’m sensing that once we get some CSS under out belts, this stuff is going to leverage our layout powers greatly. I like this pace, I feel that I’m in control so far.
Comment by Marcos Harkness — March 6, 2009 @ 11:28 AM
Thanks for the advice, John!
Comment by Anne — March 8, 2009 @ 2:49 PM