Today is HTML Day! I did not know this! Hat-tip to MetaFilter user fizzzzzzzzzzzy for posting about it. I thought it would be fitting to share my thoughts here as well.
Learning HTML changed my life.
I graduated in January ’95 with a degree in Communications, and not long after was languishing in a dead-end sales position at Jenny Craig. Around that time I started dorking around with HTML and published a web page on my ISP’s server (think: www.OldISP.com/usr/~kim). I knew I was onto something and I wanted more of it, so I bought the 10 Minute Guide to HTML which was enough to get me an admin job in the web department of a local publisher. Two years later, that led to a designer role in the the web department at the Courier-Post.
Learning HTML’s syntax also made it easier for me to learn other useful and long-lasting languages such as MivaScript (ugh) and ActionScript ((ugh)^2). But it’s not the language that makes the difference: it’s the LOGIC. Knowing even a little bit of programming is a superpower because I can explain to actual programmers what I’d like to see happen in a program and explain to non-programmers what is happening in a program. That is a skill that not a lot of liberal arts grads have, and I leverage it often. I’m proud of my beautiful brain for being able to grab onto it and more importantly hold onto it.
On the user side of things, other people learning HTML and creating their own sites about their own interests demolished the walls of the sheltered little garden that housed my mind and imagination.
I love HTML and everything it has done for all of us.
Happy HTML Day!
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