Blog 2 - Web Development Perceptions

I “should have a solid foundation in HTML and CSS”? Great. Now you tell me. Alright, well I guess I feel pretty solid on HTML, but I think I’ve just scratched the surface as far as CSS is concerned. You see, HTML is simple and finite—if there’s an opening tag, there’s a closing tag. It’s completely logical. But CSS is not quite so set in stone. For me anyway, I feel like CSS is just a process of trail and error—if I fish around long enough I’ll get what I want.

Anyway, I guess I should get on with the actual topic. Web Design in a ton of fun. I like being able to build a site completely from scratch. What concerns me is that there seems to be many ways to create websites automatically. Programs that you just put your information in and it builds the site for you off of a template are all over the place. It just makes me wonder if there’ll be enough need for designers. Will we become obsolete at some point? I hope not, or I’m just wasting my time in school. I suspect that our skills will have to progress past just designing websites into some of the more advanced applications to keep relevant. Like Ryan said on his blog, to stay in technology you really have to be a lifelong learner.

As the web grows larger and larger I really feel like my impact on society, as a web developer, gets smaller and smaller. There are so many websites now that it’s difficult to get yours noticed at all. We’re coming to point of information overload that I think will eventually completely turn people off.

I’m no psychic though, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Blog 1 - This is my DHTML blog

I have to admit, I’m not much of a blogger. I certainly have many opinions about things, and I generally don’t mind sharing those opinions with others, but I usually choose not to put them in writing. No proof of what I’ve said that way, you see. So anyway, this part of DHTML is going to be a challenge for me, but I’ll give it a try.

This is my third semester at CSI in the Graphic Design program. I’m doing both the print and web emphasis, and enjoy both. I took both HTML and Web Design last fall. That was my very first experience with any sort of web site building, and I was a little surprised to find how much I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any web classes last spring, so I haven’t even looked at any HTML or CSS for an entire year. (I know I should’ve tried to keep up with it, but I admit I was too lazy.) So I’m sure it’ll take me a few weeks to get back into the swing of things.

Everyone tells me that this class is really difficult, but I have to admit, I’m still looking forward to it. I’m excited to learn some Javascript and find out what all I call do with that, and I definitely need the opportunity to hone my CSS skills. So I suspect I’ll learn a lot this semester.

That’s all I can think of for today. Sorry it’s not more interesting.