As a web developer, nothing scares me more than hearing someone say, “I know a little HTML.”
People who say it usually have good intentions. It might be a non-technical co-worker offering to take some of the burden off you when they know you’re swamped, or a friend who insists that she can build a web site for her parents’ business by herself and save them thousands of dollars.
But good intentions do not a web developer make.
When someone says they know “a little HTML” or “the basics,” what that really means is that they flipped through an HTML for Dummies
<font> tag and deprecated attributes such as bgcolor.
Perhaps even more disturbing is when someone says, “HTML is easy.” That’s a huge red flag. Sure, the concept of it is easy; but knowing HTML and knowing it well are two very different things. Any idiot can say “hello” and “goodbye” in a foreign language; carrying out a conversation is another matter entirely. Roger Johansson puts it perfectly:
Learning the basics of HTML and CSS is easy, but mastering them takes a lot of time and effort.
Sadly, there are a lot of gainfully employed people whose HTML/CSS aptitude is truly mediocre - and in some cases just plain bad. Coincidentally, these people usually think they’re the shit. Well, remove “the” from that sentence and it’ll be accurate. They usually write code like this (for example):
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="0" width="545">
<tr bgcolor=”#336699″ height=”20″>
<td align=”left” valign=”top”>
<span class=”header”><font size=”4″>Stuff</font></span>
</td>
</tr>
</table> In regards to such people, Roger Johansson once again sums it up nicely:
Web professionals who refuse to update their skills and insist on using outdated methods can no longer be called web professionals.Some will call me an elitist for saying that. But think about it. Why should web professionals not be required to know their craft? I find that attitude - which is held by many in the industry and by many more outside of it - insulting to those of us who work hard every day to keep up with current best practices.
The fact is, people who “know a little HTML” are dangerous. When you meet one, run! - or, try to get them on the right path, in which case you must have a hell of a lot more patience than I do.
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9 Responses to "Those Five Little Words"
I know a little law from watching TeeVee.
This is why I have friends who can code for me, M@ber. Because I know I only know enough HTML to fuck up. ;)
Yeah, I admit to being one of those people who often does alignment with 5 or 6 nested tables. But I’m working on it and kicking the habit. I’m writing an IPv4 address block delegation management system that I will release and use at work - this will be rendered entirely in CSS. :)
That aside, what scares me even more is when people say, “Yeah, I did some HTML …” in response to inquiries about their programming background.
Oh, snap!
Harsh! But definitely valid. Hopefully, you aren’t talking about me…
I don’t know HTML but I did stay at a Holiday Express last night…
When I was working in the Nuclear field it always frightened me when someone would say, “Well the theory states that we can…”
Ouch.
A little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all. It is the same as programming language. Whenever I interviewed someone who said “I know a little of C#/OO/etc.”, that person failed the interview immediately. There is no such thing as ‘know a little’ in the field of programming. Either you know a little and admit you don’t know enough, or you know/practice/use it enough to be efficient. There is no in-between.
It’s called knowing enough to be dangerous. I know a little HTML, and I wouldn’t pay me to use it.
valeko:
Yeah, that’s pretty awful. It makes me cringe when people think HTML is a programming language. If you don’t know the difference between a programming language and a markup language, you’re probably not any good at either.
Duane:
No worries, I’m not talking about you! Girl you know we cool, dang…