The Basic Updates to HTML over the last 15 Years

First let me say that I STILL design my sites using CSS elements and HTML tags and attributes to give my websites improved function and form. I won’t deny that sometimes they are not pretty – but I design to suit my needs now, not for anyone else.

Whilst many other designers are now using purchased templates, I enjoy writing the background code. I enjoy that little yippee-moment when the CSS works.

I remember the first time I built a sprite based header navigation in blogger.com way back in 2004! Because blogger enabled users to modify the HTML and CSS, I spent many an evening tinkering, learning, applying, reapplying, until I had a site I liked. It was also at that time that I started creating graphics for sprites.

This morning I wanted to write an explanation of what I have enjoyed over the last 15 years of coding CSS, yet felt I couldn’t easily put it into words. Thankfully I found Casadaro Shearrod’s simplified yet succinct list displaying the basic differences/upgrades of HTML over the last 20 years.

HTML 1 – linked documents
HTML 2 – linked documents with stylized text and tables.
HTML 3 – more of 1 and 2 with some Browser specific features.
HTML 4 – a re-evaluation of 3 to removes some clutter that arrived in 2 and 3.
HTML 5 – pretty much the same as 1 with the ability to specify document structures and multimedia element.

His last line below is the #1 reason I stopped designing for others.

Knowing HTML5 in practice means we know HTML and CSS. We can do what used to be done with HTML 1,2, and 3, but we can do those things more effectively, with greater efficiency, and on a larger scale. This is what gave birth to the Web application and server side programing and scripting but, that’s a whole different talk.

HTML and CSS are not difficult to learn, but it is time consuming to both unlearn and learn as updates occur. I chose to stop. I achieved what I set out to do, so was able to tick it off my bucket list of achievements, then move onto new ventures.

And that is where I choose to end this article. Does this mean I no longer code? Are you kidding?! Reading some of the URL‘s linked above gets me fired up and interested again … so I am already pondering my website revamp!