_15:26
Frustrating Web
I’m growing more and more frusterated with the state of the web these days. Everyones off doing their own thing and
those people doing their best to give the web structure are surrounded by
bleep‘in
FrontPage crackheads.
People are simply stupid - this is all I can think of to explain the state of the web. Give them a little chance to do something and they’ll screw it up. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to enjoy but if you want to add then learn the rules and reasons for why things are so. Don’t just answer some questions in a (supposed) wizard and go tell your friends that you’re a web developer.
For those of you that are just learning contact people that know what thier doing. Feel free to play around and learn but do just that - Learn.
If I got a penny for every time I saw font tags placed around non-breaking spaces or miles of tables just to space something over 5 pixels - I would honestly be a multi-millionaire.
Sadly this site isn’t perfect either. It doesn’t validate and isn’t using the best coding philosophy to better the web. That’s why I have to redo it.
The only thing I’m stuck on right now is a design. My tired brain can’t create beautiful layouts anymore. My job is to pump sites out on command within days - sometimes hours. Almost all my creativity has left me and I’m damned to sit and stare at my empty Photoshop 7.0 canvas.
posted on December 26, 2002 | 3:58 PM EST
Add to the discussion.
OK,
So I’m a schlep that uses Frontpage for the construction of my website.
You are forgetting a couple of things. Most people who put up a site are delivering content. They don’t much care HOW it gets delivered, it’s getting it out there that’s important.
Take UPS for example. I am very familiar with their pickup, sortation, and delivery methods. It’s amazing how the whole system works to pickup a package from point “A” and succesfully deliver it to point “B”. The typical user of their service really doesn’t care about the mega-hubs that unload trailers and put the packages on color coded belts that run through the facility to other trailers that will then go to other hubs and delivery centers to be resorted to the final destination. People want to be assured that the package is picked up and gets where it’s going in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable price.
You web goobs are like the people who set up the system that UPS uses to make it happen for the people who use the service.
Frontpage users are just common folks that want to deliver the goods.
Another thing to consider… we can’t all be experts in all things. I suspect that the “common folk” who put up websites and others who surf them really have a passion for other things. Maybe they are into geneology, music, history, religion, philosophy, science,…
If a person has the data and information I’m looking for, I don’t much care how he/she got it there. If it’s easily navigated and has what I want, I’m a happy guy.
ps If you are volunteering to make my site a thing of beauty and make it easy to add and change stuff let me know!
Enjoy the New Year and many to come
I guess I would more describe it as building a house. Any person can go out and build his/her own house but that have to follow simple guidelines in order for them to keep their house.
For example:
To call something a bedroom you must have 2 forms of exit. Either a doorway and a large window (which is supposed to be a certain size) or 2 doors, etc…
You just need to learn and understand a couple things before just throughing up a wall, painting it and calling it a home.
These rules have helped save a lot of lives in cases of fires, the handicapped, etc…
It’s called Standards
Another part of my frustration comes from the people that make these WYSIWYG editors. They don’t follow these standards whatsoever. Dreamweaver has been doing a great job and getting there and is the best one I’ve seen so far. FrontPage is not good whatsoever. Explaining why is a whole nother post in and of itself.
Also - (on a quick note) You may be bringing the world great information but you’re making it very hard for people to receive it. Search Engines have to work that much harder to sift through extra crappy code. People with disabilities can’t read your site (Section 508)
So just learn a couple things before you start throwing things up online. It will make everything work together so much better.
I can’t argue with standards, they are a good thing. Let’s say for arguments sake that I bought a house “kit”. Shouldn’t that kit meet local codes if I follow the assembly instructions?
Who’s going to pressure Microsoft into using any standards other than the ones they want? What about keeping the Web open and unlegislated? A WWW that is open and uncontrolled is a two edged sword? Standards versus freedom? Maybe the WWW should be l for licensed web designers only?
Was the link to section 508 for legislation on handicap accessibility?
How can an “id10t” who has been graciously given Frontpage by Microsoft as part of Office avoid the pitfalls of offending professional HTML slingers? Is there a do-it-yourself shareware site checker? What are the ‘couple of things’ that you aren’t telling me? (Remember, if I’m using Frontpage, I probably just want to have it be done, not know all that there is to know about making a page.)
Ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever.
There are various things you can do.
1. Learn HTML
There are various good sites out there for learning the simple language of HTML. I’m a very slow learner and it took me a week to figure it out. Some sites are: webmonkey.com, w3schools.com, sitepoint.com. These sites will teach you what you need to know.
2. Use Good Tools
I would pick up dreamweaver if you’re doing much web development. You’ll like it much more with easy tools and many more options. Or you can just use notepad like I do. Ok, I actually use BBEdit or Homesite. Both are basically notepad but color your code for easier reading.
3. Check your work
When you’re done with your website try checking for errors. The W3C (the people that make the standards) offer site checkers for your HTML (validator.w3.org/) and your CSS (jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html ).
Other Stuff
There are groups of people that are fighting for standards. The biggest being the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that actually sets the standards. Funny thing is that Microsoft and Netscape are 2 companies hugely a part of the W3C and they aren’t following their own rules.
The WaSP is another group.
So check out some of those places.
Didn’t see your comment ‘til after I posted :-)
History:
Downloaded BBEdit trial version - Hello this is Greek to me! Just want to be done!
Used Appleworks “save as HTML” Cool! I can do this!
Showed off to innocent bystander, she says” You better make it look more professional”.
Showed it to wife, she says “Very nice, let me fix it for you so it looks more professional.”
Wife gets done and it’s a miracle! Look like a website. Innocent bystander says, ” What a difference!!” Told her wife fixed it, no credit here.
Asked wife to show me what she did so I could maintain it. Twenty minutes later I can stumble through Frontpage.
It works… I don’t want to know everything about everything. Sorry.
I respect your skill and ability. It’s what you do. I do something else. I’ll lay off at this point and let the discussion flow toward more knowedgable web types.
In referance to - “Let he who is without sin… - ummm - read my post again. I said that my site wasn’t completely validated and am needing to redo it.
Try validating my site now..
I can only repeat… I respect your skill and ability. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Sorry
No ones feelings were hurt.
I’m glad!
My site has fatal errors when I check it for conformity. Sure you don’t want to fix it? :-) I feel guilty!
speaking of web standards, i’m using mozilla on linux, with anti-aliased fonts, flash, quicktime, java, javascript and even windows media player support (ie, much more than a lot of people) and this message board thing overlaps the message above it over the name of the person on the message below. So all of the posts above look like they’ve come from Aaron Schaap.
anyway, hope you all had a good christmas out there in Holland. I saw joe henderson friday night, there was talk of a skating reunion among a few friends who dont skate anymore ;-) tee hee
ahhh.. the preacher and his pulpit.
I’m not running all that stuff, or am I? I have the same problem… except after you post those problems are actually below this post. Internet Exploder running on a Mac G4. I suppose that’s considered Mozilla & Linux, etc.?
I think Aaron was testing some graphical stuff and doesn’t have it debugged yet.
Maybe I should switch to Netscape or Opera and be Microsoft free?
Interesting James - hey could you take a snapshot of that for me? I’m running RedHat 8.0 and checked my site in Mozilla 1.0.1 and Galeon 1.2.5 - Everything looked perfect. The same as it does on my Win2k. Not sure what problem you’re having.
On another note:
We should have a big skate get together. Man do I miss those days :-)
ahh yes, skating for 10 hours a day all summer hehe good times, and much healthier too !
so like, yeah, i’m suspecting that the reason it’s doing it is because of this anti-aliased fonts patch that i’m running to the mozilla source because it works under mozilla + windows perfectly, and in theory those should act the same *g*
oh and what does “the preacher and his pulpit” mean? believe it or not, there are people out there that don’t believe in santa claus or jesus, and dont know their crc christian idioms very well.
howard Says:
OK,
So I’m a schlep that uses Frontpage for the construction of my website.
You are forgetting a couple of things. Most people who put up a site are delivering content. They don’t much care HOW it gets delivered, it’s getting it out there that’s important.
Take UPS for example. I am very familiar with their pickup, sortation, and delivery methods. It’s amazing how the whole system works to pickup a package from point “A” and succesfully deliver it to point “B”. The typical user of their service really doesn’t care about the mega-hubs that unload trailers and put the packages on color coded belts that run through the facility to other trailers that will then go to other hubs and delivery centers to be resorted to the final destination. People want to be assured that the package is picked up and gets where it’s going in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable price.
You web goobs are like the people who set up the system that UPS uses to make it happen for the people who use the service.
Frontpage users are just common folks that want to deliver the goods.
Another thing to consider… we can’t all be experts in all things. I suspect that the “common folk” who put up websites and others who surf them really have a passion for other things. Maybe they are into geneology, music, history, religion, philosophy, science,…
If a person has the data and information I’m looking for, I don’t much care how he/she got it there. If it’s easily navigated and has what I want, I’m a happy guy.
ps If you are volunteering to make my site a thing of beauty and make it easy to add and change stuff let me know!
Enjoy the New Year and many to come