View From The Front: You should really learn HTML

Really?

Working in the web arena I find myself more often than not with my back against the ropes facing down my own learning curve. I’m constantly getting pummeled by an onslaught of new technology and improved methodologies. At times it feels like I’m striving and struggling just so I can live to fight another day.

The front end of the web experience is where everything comes together…

or falls apart.

Lately I am astonished at how often I meet a web professional who doesn’t know the basics of HTML and CSS. I’m talking about people way more intelligent and talented than I am who can do amazing things in worlds where I only dabble: design, SEO, even advanced software development.

These same people can’t clear a floated div without flipping a table or banging their heads on their desks.

There are also those who are new to the web, who have the privilege of getting started with robust frameworks that function great, right out of the box. Still others prefer to stay out of code completely and leverage GUI editors, which are becoming better able to generate decent looking, usable websites.

I can see why it’s tempting to skip learning to code web pages by hand, but in the ever-changing technical landscape, having a fundamental understanding of HTML, how it’s affected by CSS, and the basic operation of the box model is still a necessary and useful skill.

What is so great about HTML?

With HTML5, semantic data is inherently integrated into your markup. HTML gives your content structure by breaking it up into meaningful sections, adding a hierarchical flow to the content. In an HTML page, your content is structured into sections which make sense for both search engine robots and your end users. Adding CSS to style your markup lets you change the way the content looks. You have the opportunity to give your content even more visual nuance to convey a deeper meaning and create a greater impact. You have the ability to articulate the meaning of your content in a visually rich and organized way.

Is HTML even still relevant?

The web is constantly changing, and the tools we use to create it are constantly improving. And yet, HTML has been around since the beginning. But this doesn’t mean it’s obsolete or irrelevant; rather, it demonstrates HTML’s ability to adapt and move forward in pace with the web.

For some applications it makes sense to bypass HTML almost entirely in favor of a robust language like JavaScript; but if your aim is simply to display content in a web browser, using HTML as your foundation and then enhancing with JavaScript gives you better accessibility. Mobile apps built with HTML5 and responsive design using CSS media queries is making web content device-agnostic. If you want to target the largest number of web-capable devices and keep with the best practice of progressive enhancement, HTML is still highly relevant.

Aren’t there GUI web builders that do just fine?

I’m not typically a drag-and-drop kind of girl. I recently built a dummy web page with Wix during half of a lunch break while trying to fight off a nasty flu. I got the job done (that is, I published some content to the web), but there were still limitations which I could have easily overcome if I were simply coding HTML. Instead I had to struggle with, and eventually give up on, the limitations in the GUI - such as the fixed 980 pixel page width.

Other common frustrations that come up when helping non-tech people use GUI web editing tools include: extra line breaks that appear for no reason, images aligning to text in inexplicable ways, and text links that don’t encompass the first or last character in your link phrase despite all your best efforts. Even the best GUI experience leave something to be desired, and the ability to switch to code or text view and see quickly what’s going on can save hours of frustration.

My favorite front-end framework is awesome, why reinvent the wheel?

I’m not advocating that you code every web experience you build from scratch. Even though I enjoy it, I understand that people have other things they’d rather be doing with their time. What I do advocate is to cultivate the ability to code a webpage by hand so that, if there are pieces in your framework that get in your way, you are empowered to not just overwrite, but re-write them. You gain the ability and confidence to identify and remove pieces that you don’t need in order to achieve the best performance, and keep your CSS well organized, lean and easy to revise.

I’m a (Designer/Programmer/SEO/Content Writer). Knowing HTML isn’t my job.

Everyone who works in web can benefit from knowing HTML. The front end of the web experience is where everything comes together, or falls apart. If everyone on the team knows what goes into rendering the project in the browser, then everyone can integrate their specialty more fluidly into the whole. The programmer can understand the semantic markup to wrap around database queries. The designer can anticipate content reflow from the wide monitor to the narrow handheld view. The content writer can direct the nuance in the language by leveraging structural tags. The SEO can polish the well structured page with additional micro- and meta-data. Sure, the front end developer still does the bulk of the HTML coding, along with the PHP and JavaScript and whatever else is needed to tie it all together; but if HTML is a shared context among all the members of the team, the odds of telling a successful story are greatly increased.

 

HTML is a future-friendly technology because it is a present-friendly technology, highly accessible on all web-ready devices. Writing good HTML has benefits in accessibility, performance, and presentation. Learning it might seem challenging at first, but it doesn’t take long to get up and running. The only tools you really need to get started are a text editor and a web browser. Once you get a firm grasp on the basics it becomes fun and easy to learn more.