Lesson 8 – Passing the Torch
© Kim Vickery (Hulagrrl)
Welcome to Lesson 8! I'll bet many of you are asking yourselves, "Where did Tracy Ryan go? And who is this usurper?" Not to worry! The folks at suite101 have asked me to take over these popular articles until Ms. Ryan is free to return.
Just so you know, I have thoroughly read all of the articles and all of your questions in the discussion area. This first article of mine will be dedicated to a review of the previous articles, with some additional things I think should be mentioned, as well as a preview of what's to come. So sit back, crack open a Coke, and enjoy the ride!
Lesson 1 - The Bare Bones
In this lesson, we went over the basic elements that make up a Web page. One of the things I noticed about the examples in this article is that the HTML tags are all in capital letters. Just as a side note: these tags don't have to be in all caps. You can also use lower case.
The thing about the letter case though...you HAVE to use the same case in both opening and closing tags. Don't mix your caps and lower case-just pick one! Why? Because of a coding thing called "XML", also known as "eXtensible Markup Language." XML is a newer mark up language than HTML, and its uses for the Web are expanding daily. Many of the new browsers require that all mark up languages be XML compliant. Now, getting into an explanation of XML is beyond the scope of these lessons, and you won't need to learn it to create good Web pages. However, it's good to get in the habit now of creating code that's XML compliant so that the newest browsers read it correctly.
Me personally, I prefer lower case tags because they're easier to type. But some people prefer upper case because they're easier to see when you're trying to fix problems with your code. I get around this visual issue by leaving lots of space between my lines of code. Remember the browser won't render the spaces in your code, so you could have tabs or spaces or whatever you want to make your code easier to read.
Speaking of easier to read...there's another little tidbit of basic code you should know and use frequently. It is called "comment tags." These are special tags that allow you to make comments about your code that the browser won't display. See the highlighted code in the image below for an example of these tags. Why is this handy? Well, let's say you create your Web site, then you leave it lurking on your computer for several months. I don't know about you, but my memory leaks like a sieve, and I need reminders about what I was doing.
Just so you know, I have thoroughly read all of the articles and all of your questions in the discussion area. This first article of mine will be dedicated to a review of the previous articles, with some additional things I think should be mentioned, as well as a preview of what's to come. So sit back, crack open a Coke, and enjoy the ride!
Lesson 1 - The Bare Bones
In this lesson, we went over the basic elements that make up a Web page. One of the things I noticed about the examples in this article is that the HTML tags are all in capital letters. Just as a side note: these tags don't have to be in all caps. You can also use lower case.
The thing about the letter case though...you HAVE to use the same case in both opening and closing tags. Don't mix your caps and lower case-just pick one! Why? Because of a coding thing called "XML", also known as "eXtensible Markup Language." XML is a newer mark up language than HTML, and its uses for the Web are expanding daily. Many of the new browsers require that all mark up languages be XML compliant. Now, getting into an explanation of XML is beyond the scope of these lessons, and you won't need to learn it to create good Web pages. However, it's good to get in the habit now of creating code that's XML compliant so that the newest browsers read it correctly.
I believe I've made my "case".....
Me personally, I prefer lower case tags because they're easier to type. But some people prefer upper case because they're easier to see when you're trying to fix problems with your code. I get around this visual issue by leaving lots of space between my lines of code. Remember the browser won't render the spaces in your code, so you could have tabs or spaces or whatever you want to make your code easier to read.
An example of spacing and tabbing your code.
Speaking of easier to read...there's another little tidbit of basic code you should know and use frequently. It is called "comment tags." These are special tags that allow you to make comments about your code that the browser won't display. See the highlighted code in the image below for an example of these tags. Why is this handy? Well, let's say you create your Web site, then you leave it lurking on your computer for several months. I don't know about you, but my memory leaks like a sieve, and I need reminders about what I was doing.
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The copyright of the article Lesson 8 – Passing the Torch in Website Creation is owned by Kim Vickery (Hulagrrl). Permission to republish Lesson 8 – Passing the Torch in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
