Re: Start with HTML or XHTML? (slightly OT)

"LSN Bluff"

You ask a good question, and I'm sure you'll get some good answers. While I
wouldn't dwell on it, I do see how knowing the old stuff would help students
looking to be webdesigners be able to clean and convert older stuff to newer
standards, so... assuming this course is a full semester (four months, I
think?), then I would suggest about a week spent on old styles, being clear
that these are no longer a part of the standards and should be avoided, but
how they need to know them for upgrading purposes. Show them how
[font][/font] can be converted to CSS with much better control over the text
sizes, for example, and make sure they have a grasp of the code and its
attributes. As an exercise, you could even give them an HTML 3.2 page and
have them convert it to HTML4/XHTML with CSS. If you feel your students
could get a workable grasp of the old stuff in less time, then spend less...
You could even intersperse the old and new throughout the course, so it all
stays fresh, and they can see right them how the old worked, but how the new
works better.

Does this help?

Kehvan

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----- Original Message -----
From: "LSN Bluff" <lsnbluff(at)hotmail.com>
To: <kehvan(at)zydhek.net>; <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002 17:47
Subject: Re: Start with HTML or XHTML? (slightly OT)


> Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful replies to my question!
>
> Regarding the option of "spending a few days on HTML" and then moving on.
> Where would you recommend "drawing the line" and switching to XHTML? --
> after "Hello World", after introducing links? after introducing images?
> after the _shudder_ <font> tag?
>
> Often the first jobs that a student will get would involve maintaining old

> pages -- they will need some familiarity with ole HTML. So, I'm wondering
> how much is appropriate.

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