Sweet HTML
Websites & Projects | at 03:19 PM
I just lost the Tabulas entry I was writing. I've been distracted while I was typing and closed the tab accidentally, that's so brilliant of me, and so recurrent as well, last time thanks to Notepad I lost two-thirds of an article. Anyway, this entry was about how difficult it is to update HTML pages, such as Samurai Nintendo.
I was told so very often to move to PHP because it would make my life much easier than updating pages manually. It's true, it's quite much easier but it doesn't solve all the problems, you still make mistakes and need to correct them by going through different processes. That's what annoys me the most with HTML, the little mistakes: a broken link, a wrong date, that kind of thing, not so easy to avoid with HTML, much more with PHP of course because it's automatized and you don't have to take care of it.
Not directly at least, the CMS does it for you. But if, like in my case, you don't want to use somebody else's CMS, you have to build one yourself, which is a painstaking task, so I enjoy HTML in that aspect. It's more direct and when you update your pages, you're in contact with the source, not only with the text, which is pleasant if it's a compact and well organized source. If you feel like trying something different in your layout, inserting something new in one of your pages, you can do it easily. You don't need to write some additional script for something which might be used only once. This is when simple HTML is superior to PHP, in my opinion, when you want to give a personal flavor to the layout of one page of your site.
This doesn't happen very often, unless your site is baroque like mine, reluctant to follow a single pattern. I think it's more colorful although it certainly gives an unprofessional look. What is also particularly annoying with HTML is the uploading process, connecting to a FTP or SFTP everytime, especially, once again, when you need to correct one of those little mistakes you failed to see at the first upload. However, given the constraints, I think I did a pretty good job with my two sites, Samurai Nintendo and 1UP, which are 99% plain HTML, without a server-side script for the most part. It's a lot of work, but I think the result is interesting, it gives a different feel from a PHP site, less intricate, less rich also, definitely more amateur, but most of all original. That's what I'm looking for and hopefully I'm not the one to notice (and perhaps appreciate) that singularity. Working only in HTML with a site having at least a small amount of ambition is an interesting challenge and a good teacher for more complex things to come.
1UP_review: Zombies
Samurai N: Zoids Full Metal Crash
I was told so very often to move to PHP because it would make my life much easier than updating pages manually. It's true, it's quite much easier but it doesn't solve all the problems, you still make mistakes and need to correct them by going through different processes. That's what annoys me the most with HTML, the little mistakes: a broken link, a wrong date, that kind of thing, not so easy to avoid with HTML, much more with PHP of course because it's automatized and you don't have to take care of it.
Not directly at least, the CMS does it for you. But if, like in my case, you don't want to use somebody else's CMS, you have to build one yourself, which is a painstaking task, so I enjoy HTML in that aspect. It's more direct and when you update your pages, you're in contact with the source, not only with the text, which is pleasant if it's a compact and well organized source. If you feel like trying something different in your layout, inserting something new in one of your pages, you can do it easily. You don't need to write some additional script for something which might be used only once. This is when simple HTML is superior to PHP, in my opinion, when you want to give a personal flavor to the layout of one page of your site.
This doesn't happen very often, unless your site is baroque like mine, reluctant to follow a single pattern. I think it's more colorful although it certainly gives an unprofessional look. What is also particularly annoying with HTML is the uploading process, connecting to a FTP or SFTP everytime, especially, once again, when you need to correct one of those little mistakes you failed to see at the first upload. However, given the constraints, I think I did a pretty good job with my two sites, Samurai Nintendo and 1UP, which are 99% plain HTML, without a server-side script for the most part. It's a lot of work, but I think the result is interesting, it gives a different feel from a PHP site, less intricate, less rich also, definitely more amateur, but most of all original. That's what I'm looking for and hopefully I'm not the one to notice (and perhaps appreciate) that singularity. Working only in HTML with a site having at least a small amount of ambition is an interesting challenge and a good teacher for more complex things to come.
1UP_review: Zombies
Samurai N: Zoids Full Metal Crash
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