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Help How useful is HTML for website building?

priscilla

Avatar: Pink Dress
10

Level 34 Camwhore

“Legs Wide Open”

The description for a course, as a business admin. major, that I’m considering taking:

————

Focuses on the basics of HTML with lab work that leads the student through a clear, step-by-step, screen-by-screen approach to learning the language. Students learn how to create a Web page using HTML, format the page, add graphics, and more. Topics include: Introduction to HTML, Creating

and Editing a Web Page, Creating Web Pages with Links, Images, and Formatted Text, and Creating Tables in a Web Site. In the second part of the course, students will build on the basics of HTML and incorporate design principles that can be used with any language.

————

I currently know nothing about writing websites. This would be for if I wanted to build a website for a small business. I gathered from a cousin that HTML is simple and would cost no more than a couple hundred USD to pay someone to put together a site in only that language (in which case I probably wouldn’t take it), but I want more opinions. Thanks.

priscilla edited this message on 09/20/2009 7:58PM

man-man

Avatar: 156485 2010-01-24 16:36:14 -0500
24

[Harem and Sushi Bar]

Level 69 Hacker

Selfish fine upstanding member of society

HTML is the basis of more or less everything you see on the web, if you want to do any kind of website design then you’re going to need to understand HTML. That said, it’s not the end of things if you want to do something clever with a website. That could bring in CSS, scripting (server side or client side), interacting with a database… more things than you’re going to get from HTML 101.

But seriously, learn HTML. It’s far too common that people make very special websites that try to do things “the clever way” (and end up being incredibly stupid) because they’re enamoured with what they can do with the fancy tools and overlook the easier, simpler, more compatible way of doing things in HTML.

On the other hand, if you’re a business admin major maybe you’re not going to be getting into the guts of web design. Might be easier just to get a “web guy” to do it and make use of his specialism rather than do it yourself. Depends what you want a website to do… I’ve seen perfectly good websites in strict HTML and incredibly ****ty ones with all the bells and whistles, but also the reverse.

man-man edited this message on 09/20/2009 8:04PM

priscilla

Avatar: Pink Dress
10

Level 34 Camwhore

“Legs Wide Open”

If taking the course only means I’d save a couple hundred dollars from not having to pay someone to design a website, I probably wouldn’t take the course, unless basic HTML is useful for making a simple personal website, or do I not need to worry about that? Oh, and how hard is it to learn HTML on my own? If that’s not that hard, I definitely won’t do the course. Thanks.

priscilla edited this message on 09/21/2009 9:32AM

Vageena Davis

Avatar: 151797 2010-01-24 16:34:00 -0500
29

[pizza party]

Level 69 Camwhore

I am easily offended. I also suck fine upstanding member of society male reproductive organs.

Basic HTML is very easy. If you can do BBCode, you can do handle basic HTML. If you’d like to try the self study option, check out W3Schools. They have free online tutorials, lessons and guides for web design.

Back to your original question, I think someone studying business administration shouldn’t bother learning web development (unless it’s a web development business) because you should be spending your time doing productive activities that advance and develop the business. Let the specialists handle their own areas.

man-man

Avatar: 156485 2010-01-24 16:36:14 -0500
24

[Harem and Sushi Bar]

Level 69 Hacker

Selfish fine upstanding member of society

priscilla Posted:

Topics include: Introduction to HTML, Creating and Editing a Web Page, Creating Web Pages with Links, Images, and Formatted Text, and Creating Tables in a Web Site.

I could probably teach you these things myself if I had a quick read on the subject beforehand to refresh my memory, and do it pretty quickly so long as you were ok with it being a whistle-stop tour of the subject without much in the way of reinforcement or practice. There’s more to the topic of HTML and web development than what’s in that list, but basic HTML is not hard.

As said, it’s similar in essence to BBCode – tags around text to make it do different things. If you’re good at teaching yourself from reference material then look up HTML syntax and have a poke around, then have a go to see if you’re doing it right. (Having a go requires nothing more than typing some HTML into notepad, saving it with a .htm or .html extension then opening the file with a web browser).

I’m not entirely clear on the level of the course – how long is it supposed to take? Maybe they go deeper than I’m giving them credit for, but it does sound a lot like a basic introductory course rather than a detailed one.

priscilla Posted:

unless basic HTML is useful for making a simple personal website, or do I not need to worry about that?

For a simple personal website, HTML is pretty much perfect. If you want to write any website you will, more or less definitely, need HTML but you’ll need other things as well for a complex website (at which point your time is probably better spent hiring an expert).

For simple things I suppose you could decide that you don’t need to worry about it, if you want to use a tool like Dreamweaver to write your HTML for you, but then you end up with crappy HTML… at that level, I’d say learn how to do it yourself. Just be aware of its limitations.

man-man edited this message on 09/21/2009 4:37PM

MC Banhammer

Avatar: 1887 2011-07-31 00:40:59 -0400
36

[Good Omens]

Level 69 Troll

Trying to create drama to drum up the ratings by any means necessary!

priscilla Posted:

This would be for if I wanted to build a website for a small business.

While HTML is good to know, to take a course on it seems like a waste of time. You could read a book (or visit a website as above) and practice on your own in way less time, and concentrate on a course to help you with the backend, where you’ll need at least some knowledge of databases and at least rudimentary processing.

This is of course bumuming you want to take online orders. If that’s the case, I’d also suggest taking a course on (or self-learning) security, or your small business is going to be easy to get into to steal credit card and other personal information.

duca

Avatar: 127754 2012-12-21 23:37:31 -0500
14

[And The Banned Pla-
yed On
]

Level 38 Camwhore

Happiness cannot be bought, but Crispers can.

It should not be overlooked that knowing how to code a website is only half of what you’ll need to know when designing a good website. The other half is a knowledge of design it’s self: as in layout, color theme, graphic manipulation, etc. There’s an entire artistic element that is often overlooked.

A website is often like a magazine advertisement or a catalog for your product. If it is not presented in a manner that is both intuitive and aesthetically pleasing you will lose business/hits. So taking a Basic level HTML course will not teach you how to make a professional website. Unless you wish to go into web entrepreneurship or something similar I suggest skipping it.

Daniel Plain-
view

Avatar: 88291 Thu Apr 23 15:39:59 -0400 2009
7

[Arse Ticklers fabulous persons Fanclub]

Level 47 Emo Kid

I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.

If you try to build a website using your knowledge of HTML alone, you’ll end up with a website that looks like it was built in 1998… Remember what the web looked like back then? I do.

Then again, you can’t really get to know CSS or AJAX or any of that other fancy stuff (and I’m not even talking websites that employee databases either) without having intimate knowledge of HTML first. HTML is the web’s alphabet. You can’t do much if you only know the alphabet, but if you don’t know the alphabet your illiterate.

It takes a LOT of knowledge to build a decent website. Why spend months, even years, learning all of that, when you can pay some Indian company $300 to build it for you in a couple of weeks? That’s what everyone does nowadays. Just make sure you give them really specific requirements and not allow them to use their own “creativity”...

EDIT: If there are courses focused on building Web CONTENT, not Web Code, or that talk about e-commerce, or online advertising that would far, far more useful to you than learning how to write code.

Daniel Plainview edited this message on 09/22/2009 3:57AM

priscilla

Avatar: Pink Dress
10

Level 34 Camwhore

“Legs Wide Open”

Daniel Plainview Posted:

If you try to build a website using your knowledge of HTML alone, you’ll end up with a website that looks like it was built in 1998… Remember what the web looked like back then? I do.

But but Craigslist! ... ...

It takes a LOT of knowledge to build a decent website. Why spend months, even years, learning all of that, when you can pay some Indian company $300 to build it for you in a couple of weeks?
Yeah, that’s why I was asking; to see if I would get more than rudimentary knowledge, based on the course description. I posted this thread topic too, and the answers have been a fairly overwhelming “no.”

If there are courses focused on building Web CONTENT, not Web Code, or that talk about e-commerce, or online advertising that would far, far more useful to you than learning how to write code.
Taking courses on e-commerce and advertising related to the Internet :->

Okay, I read all the responses on both sites I posted this topic, and I won’t take the course. THX 4 HELP GUYZ

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