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Show HN: HTML for People

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Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#61

Post by brailsafe »

james_marks wrote: post #54
dockd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To keep that line of reasoning going, what is the purpose of the university, if you're supposed to learn everything on your own?

I know this is sarcasm, but— Network building, external proof of ability to work, and a place (and just as important - a time) to translate who you are into who you want to be. These were always the reasons, the rest you learn on the job.

Ya, I have to agree. Although you may learn, it's clearly not the primary intention of a University to teach anything but your ability to do whatever it takes to score well or do publishable research.

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#62

Post by al_borland »

stego-tech wrote: post #14

We sorely need more of this. HTML was the first language I actually understood (although BASIC was my first ever), and left me feeling empowered to carve out my own survival on the internet. While layering CSS and Javascript aren't bad decisions on their face, I do think they combine to create a steep barrier to entry for most newcomers as they're believed to be "Core" to the language of HTML itself. Kudos to the aut…

I think CSS and JS should be things the user graduates to when they decide they need them, if they ever do.

Show someone basic HTML and most people will eventually look at their page and think, “this is neat, but how to I make this title red and change the background?” This is when to introduce the very basics of CSS.

If someone has a goal the learning process is easier and more exciting, because it’s relevant and allows them to learn something to give them a result they already want. Learning to learn is hard.

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#64

Post by al_borland »

Thank you for being one of the few people who realize TextEdit on the Mac supports plain text. The number of “experts” who say it doesn’t support it and tell people to download some other app drives me nuts.

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#65

Post by brailsafe »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #30
_lvbh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how bad the mobile epidemic has gotten. There are kids coming into a Computer Science degree that can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to. (Fwiw, those I know dropped out before 2nd year)

At one point, every member of a CS program started without having ever seen or touched a computer. Everyone has to start somewhere. We do not reject new biology majors because they had never touched a microscope before entering the program.

If you're saying that at one point in history, a given cohort of new CS students had never seen or touched a computer, I have my doubts, but it depends on how you define CS program. Before computer science was a formalized education stream, it had a variety of other names like "Business Computing" or something related to information technology, but you'd have to go pretty far back imo before you find a whole classroom of entrants into such a program that had never seen or touched a computer. By the time it was called CS, I do find it a bit of a reach that you'd find less than say 10% of students opting into taking it without that low bar being passed.

Likewise the biology example seems strange; sure maybe people haven't used a microscope specifically (unlikely imo), but they very likely have used any number of other implements and taken at least one secondary school biology course

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#66

Post by ordu »

_lvbh wrote: post #12
simonw wrote: post #8

This is great. The decision to skip CSS by depending on https://simplecss.org/ is smart - CSS is a whole other thing, and having that on top of basic HTML would be pretty intimidating. I did worry a bit about https://htmlforpeople.com/zero-to-internet-your-first-websit... - "Step 1. Create a folder on your computer" - because apparently a large number of people these days don't understand files and folders at all! ht…

It's crazy how bad the mobile epidemic has gotten. There are kids coming into a Computer Science degree that can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to. (Fwiw, those I know dropped out before 2nd year)

> can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to.

I have issues with that. FF doesn't show the path in the list of downloads. There is a button to start a file manager, but I have no file managers installed, so button doesn't work. In some cases I didn't find the better way than to copy the link and to download again with wget.

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#67

Post by eddd-ddde »

ordu wrote: post #66
_lvbh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how bad the mobile epidemic has gotten. There are kids coming into a Computer Science degree that can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to. (Fwiw, those I know dropped out before 2nd year)

> can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to. I have issues with that. FF doesn't show the path in the list of downloads. There is a button to start a file manager, but I have no file managers installed, so button doesn't work. In some cases I didn't find the better way than to copy the link and to download again with wget.

If you don't have a file manager on your system chances are you can figure out where downloads are going to.

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#68

Post by peterkelly »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #16
_lvbh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how bad the mobile epidemic has gotten. There are kids coming into a Computer Science degree that can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to. (Fwiw, those I know dropped out before 2nd year)

My dad was asking me a question about backing something up onto Google Drive, or saving space on some cloud storage account, or something. He was using the mental model of files and folders -- that files exist and refer to stored bytes, and that there can be one or several copies of a file. There can be links to a file that take very little space relative to the file. I had to tell him that I have no idea what sort o…

Google drive follows the files and folders model that your father was expecting.

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#69

Post by bo1024 »

giobox wrote: post #43
bartvk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say half of my first-year CS students don't know how to create a folder with files, at the start of the school year. To me, it's nuts. But on the other hand, lots of students are very curious and come to learn. You can't blame them for not knowing something.

I try not to get overly-annoyed at this kind of thing too, but to me it just demonstrates an incredible lack of self-drive, or curiosity, especially in the CS domain. If the students are genuinely curious, there is nothing to stop them learning about pretty much any topic in CS - really. There are few university subjects where the entire syllabus is freely available online in almost every format imaginable the way CS…

Are you sure they have a computer (i.e. something with a keyboard and a filesystem that it is possible to write and run programs on) at home?

Re: Show HN: HTML for People

#70

Post by ordu »

eddd-ddde wrote: post #67
ordu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't figure out how to unzip a zip or even finding out where files get downloaded to. I have issues with that. FF doesn't show the path in the list of downloads. There is a button to start a file manager, but I have no file managers installed, so button doesn't work. In some cases I didn't find the better way than to copy the link and to download again with wget.

If you don't have a file manager on your system chances are you can figure out where downloads are going to.

Well, I manage it sometimes, but I then I forget how I did it. I think the way to do it, is to try to download something with ff again, but stop at the file chooser dialog to figure out where it points to.
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