Both my class and the entries on this blog are based upon W3C standards. Those of you who have developed web pages in the past, or had been taught to do so, may be in for a rude awakening. There are likely to be rules that you were unaware of, practices that you have been following that "always worked in the past", a new means of approaching code. For that reason it is especially important that you pay close attention in every class, no matter what your level of experience.

Code must be to W3C Standard

Meaning: all tags closed, correctly nested, code in lowercase, quotes used for attributes, where necessary. (HTML loosens these requirements substantially).

Tables are for tabular data

If you have information that would be displayed in a table format on paper – a class schedule, for example – then a table is acceptable. They are not acceptable under any other circumstance. Tables should be used to display exactly that – information that makes sense to display in table format. Tables should not be used for layout. Use CSS and <div> instead.

No frames

Frames were an intermediate solution to displaying boxed “floating” content on your site. Their only remaining purpose is to show the content of other websites within your own (which brings its own copyright issues). Frames make websites difficult to navigate, bookmark, and index in search engines. Avoid them wherever possible. Use <div> instead.

No <font> tags

Font tags have been superseded by CSS.

NotePad only for coding

DreamWeaver and other programs won’t teach you how to code. They are useful, and we will be using them later in the course to speed up development, but for the first class we will solely be using NotePad to code. (You are of course free to use any program you wish in your own time, but your instructor will not provide support for them, or for the code generated by such programs).

If you are unfamiliar with these terms, do not be concerned – they are only emphasized for those who will need to unlearn bad HTML habits.