Lesson #0: Intro, and an overview of what HTML actually is.

Welcome to my HTML tutorial! I hope you enjoy it. If you've been on CC regularly over the last six months, you probably know me, so even though most courses start with an introduction to the writer, I'm not doing that.

I really don't know how long this course is going to be. I'm just going to start writing, taking your comments into consideration so I can make sure this course is meeting your needs. Feel free to criticize these lessons, point out typos, and ask for help whenever you need it. After all the writing is complete, I'll likely package it up in a PDF, but for now, it's going to be an interactive course.

Although I may not follow it strictly, I'm going to go with a basic template for each lesson. First, I'll explain what you need to know for each lesson, then I'll post some in-depth examples of how to use what I just explained, and then I'll leave an assignment or two. These assignments will vary in difficulty, and you don't have to post the code you come up with, but feel free to show people how you solve these puzzles.

There are a lot of really good HTML tutorials out there. So, why am I reinventing the wheel here? Because CC needs more HTML savy administrators. You can do whatever you want with your HTML skills after this course is over, but the CC Tech team needs more HTML writers, so I'd suggest you talk with Bren if you'd like to volunteer some time helping out on CC.

Another huge reason I'm making my own HTML tutorial is because I want to teach the right way to code HTML. There are many ways to write webpages, but many tutorials teach the quick and sloppy ways. I'm going to focus on teaching the right way. I will explain some of the sloppier ways to do things, but I'll make sure to mark it as such. So, if you already can write HTML, it may be worth watching this course to make sure how you code matches up with the common best practices.

Now, it's about time I describe what HTML is, exactly. So, let's try.

HTML is a computer language used for writing webpages. HTML tells a web browser what information to display, and how to display it. HTML does not, however, directly control the style of a web page. HTML documents are directly human-readable, so you don't need a fancy editor to write it.

HTML is really just a language you use to write webpages. It's got grammar, it's got strict rules, and it's not as hard to learn as Japanese.

Over the course of this, ahem, course, I'm going to explain the grammar, the rules, the tags, the attributes, and everything else you need to know about HTML to write webpages.

There is no assignment for this lesson, because I'm assuming everyone who wants to learn HTML from this course doesn't know much, if any, HTML.

I hope you all enjoy this course, I'll start lesson one soon. It should be up tomorrow, I think.