In about a couple of days I will hold a course about Web development to some interested people. I’ll only have less than 9 hourse and would like to cover the basics, such as HTML/CSS and the like. But I’ve started to wonder: What do I want them to learn, XHTML oder HTML? I feel that XHTML should be delivered as application/xhtml+xml, not text/html. But there’s no way I’m goint to ruin their day by showing them the widely feared “Yellow Screen Of Death”. But XHTML is the future1, and it’s easier to learn for its stricter syntax. Additionally the “X” makes it sound way cooler.
On second thought HTML is still a current standard and in it’s strict, well formated form not really different to XHTML at all. That said, I’ll probably teach HTML and explain the difference to XHTML to them later.
But that raises another question: How much should I tell them about the things revolving around HTML and CSS? The web just wouldn’t be the web if you’d just write some HTML and threw in a bit of CSS and live happy on, would it? I’ll have to mention at least something about IE-weirdness, I’ll have to drop some word on usability, accessibility and all the rest of it. Images need to be addressed, too.
And if I tell them HTML, how much of it? So far, I’ve decided on <html>, <head>, <link>, <title>, <body>, <p>, <a>, <h[1-5]>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>, <table>, <td>, <th>, <img> which gives me a headache just to think about. This is to be done in under three hours. There will be another three hourse for the basics of CSS and about two hourse to play around with the things learned.
Well, I guess I just have to wait and see if that works out the way I hope for. If not, there’s always a next time…
Update: As it turns out, 9 hours is a lot more than you think if you’re talking to real smart people. We’ve covert all HTML, CSS and even a bit PHP!
- Did I mention that I don’t like HTML5? [↩]