Simon Willison’s Weblog

Reintroducing HTML

4th July 2003

Jay Small: Reintroduce yourself to HTML. A call to web authors everywhere to go back to their roots and realise that HTML is not something that should be avoided. He makes some great points, such as the following:

Knowing HTML is understanding document structure: That return to the roots of the language means you can focus your HTML learning on the tags and styles that explain document structure -- paragraphs, lists, headings, sections, images, captions. You know, the content types you work with every day.

HTML logic is quite simple, and the markup quickly makes sense to writers and editors, in particular -- because the language is set up much the way you have to think to put one word in front of another competently.

From a site called Small Initiatives, which I’d never seen before but I will definitely be revisiting. Lots of great content under the banner of “Sensible Internet Design”.