HTML FOR BEGINNERS

INTRODUCTION

My first advice to anyone reading this blog is that you should not be scared of the way acronyms that are used to describe computer languages sound. The first time i took on any kind of computer programming the sound of languages and programs like HTML, PHP, FLASH, MYSQL, CSS.... and so on seemed like they were out of space and that my thinking faculty was never going to be able to process this kind of information. I however found this to be very untrue as i embarked on learning all the languages and programs need to become a web designer. I however must warn you that learning this language will require some smarts, some consistency and alot of patience and microreading.

HTML stands for "Hypertext Markup Language" and is one of the languages required to communicate with your browser to display the information you code into that browser. Seems complicated? On the computer you are currently reading this blog from, go to the view button on your browser window and click on it, on the drop down menu that is displayed, click on view source and it will show you all the HTML code used in designing this particular webpage.

Another thing you have to know is that learning HTML would be like learning a new language like french, german or english. The difference is as opposed to using a regular language to communicate with other people. HTML is used to communicate with your browser.

Note: There are 3 majors browsers used on the internet:

1. Internet Explorer (A Windows Invention used by a majority of the Internet browsing population).

2. Firefox ( Created by an independent entity tired of all the bugs and viruses that internet explorer is associated with).

3. Safari ( This is the browser used by Apple computers).

The one major downside of using HTML as a method of designing your webpage is the fact that it is not consistent across all browsers which means sometimes Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari all render HTML code differently on each browser which means in one browser a particular result could be achieved and be non existent in another browser. There are other languages that are consistent across all browsers like PHP ( Hypertext Processor which is a server based scripting language that you script on the server itself to render a webpage but it is out of the scope of this blog).