The Joy of HTML

Back in the bad old days. September 1996 to be exact. I discovered the internet, obviously it had been discovered before then, but not by me. It was all new.
I also discovered, almost by accident, that one could build a webpage. The whole new world that was version 2 browsers lay before me. I loved it, bored and pregnant I spent night after night poring over the source of my favourite sites, memorising html tags as I went along, just me, notepad and an endless stream of other people’s code.

Somewhere along the line I got quite good at it, somewhere along the line I learned JavaScript, a bit of perl, how to use Photoshop proficiently, and later Dreamweaver replaced my text editors and then my hobby, my late night solace became my job…

… and I forgot how much I loved it, I forgot the sheer thrill of figuring something out for the first time, learning new techniques became a neccessity instead of fun and in the midst of clients and invoices, web teams to look after and projects to run from the outside I forgot the enjoyment of late night sessions staring at two lines of code accompanied by a few tired souls on icq and the hum of my computers.

A few weeks ago, I announced my decision to rebuild this site to new standards. To work towards code that validated, to dump tables for layout in favour of css positioning and quit worrying in my personal space about v.4 browsers.

My resolution has created lots of work, each time I think I am getting near I figure out something new, read another article, hit view source one more time and have to rebuild. I think I’m getting there though.
My first tentative steps were to try using css positioning instead of tables and recreate some of the existing pages of this site. I have since dumped that approach and am rebuilding from scratch, keeping the same feel but enjoying my new positioning powers! Hopefully I will be able to show you this soon.

Just for these few hours – grabbed inbetween work, taking care of the small person, various freelance projects and life in general – its been like the old days, frustrating and fun, just for a while I can remember why I got into this business at all.