Re: Web Design

Mario Figueiredo <marfig(at)ebonet.net> writes:


>> To create web pages, your most important skills are how to write, how to
>> create graphics, how to lay-out pages, how to structure hypertext, or
some
>> combination thereof. The rest of it is unimportant.
>
>And this means to know HTML, DHTML, CSS and eventually on a near future
>Pearl, CGI and some other stuff like XML, doesn't it?

I could create a web page in two minutes without writing a single line of
HTML. You don't need to know any of the above.

>I mean, on a superficial analysis of your assumption, one might think that
>you are right, but to "lay-out pages" (for instance) you need more then
>basic knowledge, especially if the interest lies in Business (which seems
to
>be the case of the original question).

No. You have GUI tools. You can drag-and-drop, apply styles, do all sorts of
clever stuff. Creating a HTML page is as easy as writing a letter in a word
processor. A basic knowledge of the tool would be advantageous, but
knowledge of HTML is superfluous.

>Picking up your own signature "Imagination is more important than
>knowledge", we must agree that A. Einstein it's correct on what concerns
the
>first stages of the Scientific Process. But it's also true that it was his
>knowledge that made him capable of prove his famous theory, not
imagination.
>Wouldn't you agree?

Yes... and...?

>> Why do you need to know the nuts-and-bolts of HTML? If you were
>> designing a
>> paper-based publication, would you learn the underlying file formats of
>> Word, or Quark, or whatever? I don't think so (although that stuff is
kind
>> of interesting in its own right).
>
>A very crude (read *bad*) comparison. Just because the "underlying format"
>of Word must, in the same way, compare to DTD specification and syntax and
>not to very good knowledge of HTML.

Well I think my understanding of HTML has been improved because I can read a
DTD. But I don't *need* to know HTML or SGML to create a web page. Four
years ago I did. Today I don't.

>> We have a huge number of GUI web authoring tools and site management
tools
>> available to us. Purists will scoff at their handling of HTML
>> (stand up and
>> be counted, Harold Driscoll!),
>
>After all this is more like a flame attempt, no?

Well Harold and I have been disagreeing for two years now, off and on, and I
figure he can take the "dig". Especially if he remembers that I write HTML
in a text editor and I wouldn't touch a GUI editor with a ten-foot pole. I
think *I'm* a "purist", but my point was that you don't need to be because
there are a number of mature tools around that will do the hard work for
you.

>>but they do the job adequately and you need
>> zero knowledge of HTML to use them. There are no equivalent tools
>> to hide a
>> deficit of writing/drawing/designing skill.
>
>Zero knowledge??!!

That's what I said.

>You must tell all of us which tools are those. It would be great to see HWG
>close it's doors, just because there were not more customers. ;)

Well there will always be people who want to know more than the basics. I
don't *need* to understand Word's file format to do my job, but I studied it
anyway because I was interested. Ditto for HTML.


--
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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