Not quite so technical.


When we have absolutely no idea of how something is done, it's easy to attribute it to magic, or at least to the fact that whoever performed the feat in question is vastly more capable than we are in that particular field. But even a minimum of knowledge about a subject goes a long way toward removing the aura of magic.

Until I learned how to juggle, juggling seemed to be beyond anything I might be able to learn to do. Today, though I still haven't gotten beyond the very basics of using three balls, and I still have great respect for virtuoso juggling performances, I'm no longer quite as impressed. I've seen people in teacher-training courses swear that they'll never be able to understand, let alone use, a spreadsheet who after a couple of weeks find themselves saying that they aren't as in awe of their accountants as they once were.

And so it is with HTML. Once we've actually seen how its done, even if all we're doing is copying a bit of code and tweaking it a bit to see whether we can get the desired response, the aura of magic quickly evaporates. It's impressive stuff, but not quite as daunting as we once assumed.



Go to: Me and HTML