CSS, HTML, and Grok

The first article we read, "How to Grok Web Standards," reminded me of some of our first discussions in class. One of the first things we learned was that some people are very good at producing a visual design, but may not be able to take that design and turn it into code. This article discussed how you can "change the way you think about design." In order to do this you must think like a writer, engineer, and artist all at once. At first I didn't really like the way they were saying think like a writer, engineer, and artist, but after reading the entire article I realized where they were going with it.  What I  gathered from this article was that they want you to create an outline of your site (like a writer), then plan the sequence of elements in your markup (like an engineer), and then become familiar with the language so that you can create an appealing design (like an artist).

The second two articles (What is CSS and HTML), helped me to understand the difference between the CSS and HTML. CSS is the style language that defines the layout of HTML documents (fonts, colors, margins, etc.) and is used for formatting content. HTML is used to structure content and makes it possible to present information on the Internet. HTML documents are know as Web pages. In the article "Getting Started with HTML," Dave Raggett explains how to start with a title, then add headings and paragraphs, emphasis to your text, images, links to other pages, and finally use various kinds of lists. This article had a lot of helpful information and code lines that I believe will help tremendously when I go to write my first Web page. Reading up on all of this has made me excited/nervous to start writing HTML.