Re: Web Design

Well, I seem to have annoyed a few people, but I hope they understand that I
was deliberately overstating my case to make make my point more obvious.

And my point was, knowledge of HTML, CSS, XML, JS, PERL [insert additional
acronyms as required] are NOT AS IMPORTANT as a basic knowledge of written
English (or the language of your choice), or graphic art (if that is your
forte) or basic hypertext theory (if you intend to have more than one page
on your site).

I have seen so many web sites, even (or especially?) corporate ones, that
are badly thought-out, badly designed, and just plain illiterate*, that I
think the basic skills are being lost somewhere along the line.

Sure, learn HTML and code it by hand in Notepad (as I do) or Vi (for you
Unix types). Because it's fun  and you get the satisfaction of knowing that
your code is "better" than the dross that comes out of (e.g.) FrontPage. But
remember that the output of FrontPage will be acceptable to nearly every
browser, you'll produce pages five times faster, and you'll save yourself a
steep learning curve.

So I stand by my statement: You don't _need_ HTML, etc., to produce a
functional web site. You do need to know how to write (or draw, or lay out,
etc.).



* I obviously don't want to infer that the original poster might be
illiterate. His message suggests otherwise!

--
David Meadows [ Technical Writer | Information Developer ]
DNRC Minister for Littorasy * david(at)heroes.force9.co.uk
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
   --Albert Einstein

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