So Long, NCSA Primer
by Scott Hardie on August 28, 2006
Someone asked me for help learning HTML today. I turned to my trusted traditional source, the good old primer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, but alas, it has finally been removed after all these years. This was one of the major how-to guides in the early years of the web, and it's the very guide that I used to teach myself HTML one weekend in 1996, from which this very site you're reading has since evolved. I was surprised it lasted so long, but over the years I have recommended it to a great many people interested in web development, including as recently as this past spring. It had such a comfortable lay-terms approach while most other guides are hopelessly technical, and that's silly since HTML is a very accessible, easy-to-use language and anybody should be able to pick it up, but maybe I only think that because I had a good guide to teach me. Thanks for everything, NCSA.
Two Replies to So Long, NCSA Primer
Scott Hardie | August 30, 2006
W3Schools has always been my second recommendation. It's highly technically specific and you can find the precise syntax requirements you need – but they're just not good at explaining it on a conceptual level so that someone just starting out can see the forest for the trees. php.net has the same problem for the php language: Technically precise, but almost zero context that would foster understanding.
As for the others, I guess I'll have to get familiar with them so I know other good places to send someone from now on.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Game Over
On paper, Game Over doesn't look promising: A vulgar, video-game-themed cartoon series on UPN that only lasted five episodes. But I rented it anyway, and somehow it managed to be entertaining and smarter than it needed to be, but maybe that was just the low expectations kicking in. I think the key to the show is that it actually respected its characters and cared for them as a family unit, instead of using them as empty vessels for punchlines (latter-year The SImpsons) or treating them with unmistakable contempt (Family Guy). Go »Very Unique
If you're going to write on your resumé that you're an "exceptional team player," you'd better be prepared to explain during your interview how that's possible. Go »Twit
Have you heard of Twitter? It's this great new web site where you report to your friends exactly what you're doing at that moment in time. Neat stuff! Go »Documenting My Discomfiture
My company hired a new guy to do documentation a few weeks ago, Rajeev. I've seen him walking around talking to the software developers, and attending meetings with managers in glass-walled rooms. I've heard several managers praising Rajeev by name and telling me that we need to get Rajeev to review prior documentation before we begin on projects. Go »Abe, Honest
During my visit to Springfield last weekend, Kelly and I went to a historical reenactment on the outskirts of town. Every small city that can do so builds shrines to its homegrown celebrity, but Springfield takes worship of Abraham Lincoln to new levels of ridiculousness. Besides the museum with the ordinary tools used by Lincoln during his early twenties, the historical community had the actual buildings he slept in and worked in. Go »
Amy Austin | August 30, 2006
Hm, that's too bad -- but there are three re-directs offered, which leads me to wonder how your estimation of these alternatives compares to your Old Faithful...