MooPig Wisdom

Title: How do I apply 'Bodoni MT Black' to my Web Page? HTML, of course!
By Patrick Darnell Date: 4/24/2007 6:25:54 PM Word Count: 1185

Introduction: Upstart Crow or Legitimate Language?

This paper introduces HTML as a unique historical development in civilization’s total history of language. It is a hidden language, and pushes ASCII around. As a tool of communication it resembles no other type of alphabet, spoken word or structure, except in its own microcosm of computing. As a newer form of language it is naturally going through trial and error. And, as users experiment with the syntax and logic of its technology, some will hit snags or catastrophes and patch together a new syntax of HTML.

The following discussion is food for thought. If I were proficient in HTML and HTTP, I would link every key word of this paper to its source. But I am not and only just learning.

Task Detail

You and I both would like to determine what the purpose of HTML is. Using research, and citing all appropriate sources, we should come up with a definition of HTML, and determine some historical information about it, and give any other relevant information as to what uses HTML can be put to.

Discussion: Vernacular or Upstart

HTML is after all an acronym. It is one of thousands, no, millions, that have taken to the English language like assimilation is to the Borg in Star Trek TNG.
· Hyper: hidden from the eye, as a code that is over text, it directs and sends the output where the code puts it. Now that is a fabulous concept and pertains to the actual language being prompted by a tag, or abbreviation, written by one man in the beginning.
· Text: transcription was needed to help translate everyday languages to computer languages so output could be recognizable to common-folk all over the globe. Formatting is similar to development in graphics industry since they needed standards for left and right based writing.
· Markup: The documents themselves are plain text files; ASCII, with special "tags" or codes that a browser knows how to interpret and display on your screen.
· Language: As a language: Dead or alive, like Lingua Franca it is a pidgin, (Corré, Alan D; n.d), a trade language used by numerous language communities around the world, to communicate with others whose language we do not speak.

Yes ASCII with HTML is the first attempt to establish a world language since the destruction of the Tower of Babel. By its original design, HTML was not designed as a formatting tool, yet people have found ways to trick HTML into forming precise web page formatting. And as a language it is borne dead, because dead languages make for unchanging standards over long periods of time.

Thus, “Hyper Text Markup Language is how a web browser displays multimedia documents. The documents themselves are plain text files, ASCII, with special "tags" or codes that a browser knows how to interpret and display on your screen” (Berners-Lee, 1997).

Standards of Equivalence and Conservation for WEB Users

We are all pretty familiar with the terms we are using in this discussion, and terms used in driving in traffic in our car. So let’s take a look at WEB design using HTML and formatting standards as much like transportation engineering. To avoid congestion and collision, standards are made from vernacular that is accepted by end users. In other words a street sign is posted as a standard only after it is accepted by drivers who find it acceptable.

Traffic is controlled by public acceptance. The public has grown to accept customs of safe operations of vehicles on the public highways over a long period of trial and error process. Unfortunately some customs are not met with public approval, and those controls are disbanded, replaced or amended. In the meantime property and persons are damaged in collisions or dysfunctional controls, until the appropriate traffic control is in place.
Why do you think we call it crashes? Drivers in highway traffic and internet users are the same persons.

Yes, the public is the test rabbit. So goes the internet. We have been suffering the microcosm without ample standards for a good fifty years now. And the race toward dominant standards will continue at the public’s expense indefinitely. Creating directional signage and standards for right-of-way are symptomatic of driver habits on the highways. The same principle is found in the traffic of browsing persons in the internet, but it is of less consequence in property damage if there is a mishap. Or is it? This is where we are today with super safe highways:

• The average number of US traffic fatalities during the 2001 to 2005 calendar period is 42,873
• We estimate that the next fatality will happen in 10 minutes and 28 seconds
• If you woke up at 6AM today, we estimate that 15 people have been killed in the US between then and now
• By the time you get home from work today (assuming you are out of your house from 7AM to 7PM we estimate that 60 persons have been killed in the US in vehicle-related crashes
• Approximately 120 persons will be killed in vehicle-related crashes per day
• If flying were like driving: Given that a medium-capacity jetliner accommodates 200 people, this represents 217 airplanes that crash each year. This means, each week, approximately 4 airplanes would crash.
• (State information provided by The National Center for Statistics and Analysis at NHTSA, 2007)

Public highways are a purely democratic statement, paid for with taxpayer funds. As each uses the streets equally sharing with the next person inability to adhere to standards and be unsafe, or be killed in a misjudged attempt to get around a barrier, makes the traffic dangerous for all.

Standards are very necessary, yet very difficult to establish, that only at first we can treat the symptoms. In my latest version of Defender Pro, I have a list of anti-things all included in this year's upgrade I want to share with you. All these items are sold because of the internet, not despite the internet. Browsers are traffic byways that must have controls, or all these will invade and crash systems:

• Anti-popup
• Anti-spam
• Anti-spy
• Anti-virus
• Cell phone anti-virus
• Firewall
• ID Theft
• Parental Control
• PC Backup
• Power Up
• Private Surf
• Scam Siren
• Tool Box

...are recommended for small to medium sized business browsing. The anti-virus is updated every two hours, so it claims. It is humming in there as I type right now. That is the future of web browsing if we let developers keep expanding HTML too far. Keep it simple.

Conclusion

Our text author Paul Whitehead concludes, “The job of HTML is to tell Web browsers how to display these elements to the user.” For instance, should one wish a page to display the font as Bodoni MT black? HTML code surrounds the block of text to be Bodoni MT black and that is how it appears on the screen, at the printer, or to another person viewing the page at large.

Using a Web browser that interprets the HTML elements and code is the highway standards that make our creations travel safely across continents into the work-stations of all. Not just an upstart, rather here to stay. (Whitehead, P; 2005) Okay you can all wake up now.

References

Berners-Lee, Tim with Fischetti, Mark, (1997) Weaving the Web, Harper, San Francisco; Paperback: Abridged audio cassette ISBN: 0694521256 and several other languages

Corré, Alan D, also Bellman, Jonathan: (n.d) A Glossary of Lingua Franca – introduction; A Dead Language, retrieved from uwm edu corre Franca edition2 lingua 2 html; corre uwm.edu

EDWARD DE VERE (May 1989, February 2001) NEWSLETTER NO3, Published by De Vere Press 1340 Flemish Street Kelowna, BC V1Y 3R7 Canada; Robert Greene's Groats-worth of Witte Bought With a Million of Repentence

NHTSA, (2007) the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Assoc, retrieved 24/April/07 from: nrd nhtsa dot gov departments’ nrd-ncsa Avail Inf

Whitehead, Paul and Russell, James H; (2005) Textbook “HTML, your visual blueprint for designing web pages with html, css, and xhtml” Wiley Publishing, Inc, Hoboken, NJ