Re: Offering the Beginner's Perspective

On 3 Apr 2013, at 17:25, "David R. Herz" <mr@theherzes.com> wrote:

> So first Chris, thank you.  I really don't think I am going to be needing
> too much hand holding, but I am certainly happy to give my input as we move
> along, and I am never shy about asking questions.

Cool.

> Where do you want the
> comments?  Should I be commenting in the question heads where there is space
> to comment or be keeping a list on the side, or cutting and pasting what you
> have and rewriting it, or some combination of the above.

I'm currently keeping a list of points that come out of our discussions. Feel free to jot down points and send them to me as they arise.

> 
> I already started my own cheat sheets for both html and css.  I'll share
> those as they get anywhere.

cool.

> 
> I copy the list on this mail just to let all know what the status is and
> that my questions have been addressed.  As to this particular endeavor, is
> this already part of a working group that I should sign onto or join?  If it
> is, I am not quite all there on how the wiki works or how such sub/groups
> would be handled through it.

Again, I'm not sure about this yet. There was some talk a while ago about a beginner's writing project, but then everyone got too busy. Your introduction to the group seems very timely and I would like to start up a beginner's project to capitalise on the momentum you've brought. But since I was last here, we've had a new bug system implemented. I'm guessing the best way to track this will be to start a project inside that system. But I need to learn how ;-)

Bear with me on this.

> 
> Anyway, thanks for the warm welcome.  I'm happy to play along.
> 
> David R. Herz
> mr@theherzes.com
> skype: drherz
> 1-203-517-0518
> 972-4-641-8708
> 972-52-579-1859
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Mills [mailto:cmills@opera.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 1:02 PM
> To: David R. Herz
> Cc: public-webplatform@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Offering the Beginner's Perspective
> 
> 
> On 1 Apr 2013, at 21:46, David R. Herz <mr@theherzes.com> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Developer Friends:
>> 
>> I am new to this list.  I am a lawyer, a teacher, and starting work as
> coach, commentator on manners, and organizer of real estate deals. I am here
> because I want to make my own web pages properly, as opposed to futzing with
> the site builders - ack! - that my web-hosting service provides.  My problem
> is I like to do things right, or at least efficiently. I don't know if that
> makes me a web-developer, but in this increasingly democratic (thanks to the
> internet) world, it's a direction in which I would like to expand.
> 
> Hi David, and welcome to our list! I think that your dedication to doing
> things right is to be respected, and I am confident that we can give you the
> information you need. At the moment, our site is far from finished. We have
> a noble goal - of creating *the* definitive web development resource - we
> have some passionate people involved, who want to make web development
> easier to learn, and we have a lot of "seed" content contributed from other
> resources.
> 
> What we don't have is time, and there is a lot to do. We are working as fast
> as we can, but as you've noticed, some parts of te site have a distinctly
> "in progress" feel.
> 
> But all is not lost. The beginner's section of the site is one I am
> particularly passionate about, and I would really like to make progress on
> it. And I think you can be of great help to me. Would you be willing to work
> through our material and given me feedback as you go, if I help you get over
> the current organizational hurdles we have, and make sure you are being sent
> to the right steps at each stage? From what you've said below, this pretty
> much sounds like what you would like to do anyway.
> 
> I am an experienced trainer with a proven record of teaching web development
> to beginners, so you are in good hands . I would hope others on the list
> would vouch for that ;-)
> 
>> 
>> I could go out and buy a web pages for dummies type of book, or just cut
> and paste my Microsoft Word documents into the WYSIWYG editor of my web
> page, or have it convert automatically to html, but it seems to me this will
> leave me with some really sloppy mark up code that is outdated and difficult
> to manipulate, and anyway, some of my ideas (there are a handful of site
> ideas that spin about my head) will be better served if I can program them
> myself and call to the databases that I am also planning to build and use.
> 
> Yes, definitely. There are so many advantages to writing your own markup and
> code that it would take too long to list them all here (although this is a
> separate thread that I would be happy to have with you at some later stage.)
> 
>> 
>> But that's in the future. For the moment, I am really a beginner. I've
> looked at the web-platform stuff for "beginners" (but maybe even that
> presumes more knowledge than I have), and I realize that I am getting a bit
> lost. I wanted to color certain text. From what I see, this might be best
> handled via a CSS definition (I couldn't even figure out how to do it
> in-line), but when I search for color or text color, I get a lot of
> information on various color coding systems, but can't figure out how to
> paint a few words red, or some table headings blue, etc.
> 
> The current beginners page (http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/beginners)
> isn't great; we were hoping to create a new set of beginner's information
> soon, which will take you through a whole project, step by step, giving you
> all you need at each stage. The proposed new beginner's landing page will
> look like this: http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/TEST:beginners
> 
> The articles you see at the existing beginner's page are taken from the web
> standards curriculum, a tutorial series I developed a few years ago and then
> donated to this project. You can find a more easily accessible list of those
> articles at http://www.w3.org/community/webed/wiki/Main_Page
> 
> In the webplatform project we are aiming to break those up and disperse them
> through the other relevant sections, such as HTML, CSS, concepts, etc., and
> create something even more structured and suitable for beginners on the
> beginners page.
> 
>> 
>> So what I am offering is to work with someone to provide a beginner's
> perspective as I learn what I am doing so that we can document the process
> and design the W3C pages so that the next person who comes here as a
> beginner actually feels like he can get the tools here to start developing
> (or is it only writing, and does that mean I am in the wrong place?)
> well-formed web pages.
>> 
>> I'd appreciate your input and advice on how we can move this project
> forward together.
> 
> See above - let's do it ;-)
> 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> David R. Herz
>> mr@theherzes.com
>> I set up an IRC account, but can't seem to reach the #webplatform page (I
> really am a beginner)
> 
> I can help you with this too. Have you downloaded a char/IRC client?
> 
> You need to make a new connection - this works pretty much the same in all
> chat clients. You need to set the server as irc.freenode.net and give
> yourself a nickname. Then when you've connected to that server, choose to
> join a room and specify the chat room name as #webplatform.
> #webplatform-site is also a useful one, if you want to talk more
> specifically about site structure, etc.
> 
>> skype: drherz
>> aim: legal@theherzes.com
>> 1-203-517-0518
>> 972-4-641-8708
>> 972-52-579-1859
>

Received on Thursday, 4 April 2013 11:03:35 UTC