I do dancing, too
What do I know about web design?
October 3, 2009Back in 1996, I knew that I knew nothing about designing websites. Let’s face it – I barely knew what the internet was, then.
But then we decided ‘we’ (that is Janet and I) needed a website, so people could see what Janet was doing in the world of dollshouse miniature embroidery. I took the source code of a website (picked almost at random) to the next fair we were exhibiting at, and sat all day, trying to see how it worked.
When we got home, I started building my first page, copying bits of html and experimenting until I made it (sort of) work. Since then, I’ve always preferred to build pages using raw code, viewing the page in the browser occasionally, as it progressed. WYSIWYG editors always seemed too inscrutable for me to bother to learn how to use them.
Today, I still use the free text editor, Homesite 1.2 (September 1996) that I started out with. I’ve tried Dreamweaver, Hot Metal, and a few others, but never got used to using them. CSS has become a familiar subject, and handy tools like Chris Pederick’s Web Developer extension keep me looking at how experts are building sites, so I can learn all the time.
So why do I still feel I know nothing? Is it because it’s a huge subject, and the more I know the more I realise how much more I have yet to learn? Probably.
