While learning JavaScript and CSS, spend some time with HTML

 Please forgive this short little sermon. I've been spending most of my time over the past few years getting myself reacquainted with client-side development. A majority of that time has been spent focused on JavaScript. I've spent some time getting better at CSS as well, but honestly, it really isn't something that interests me much. Plus, I already work with people doing amazing things with CSS.

While I've spent most of my time with JavaScript, I've been trying to get more familiar with HTML as well. That may sound a bit silly. I certainly didn't plan to. I've been working with HTML since around 1993, so certainly I know everything there is to know about it already, right?

Obviously, that wasn't the case. The more I looked at HTML5, the more I began to realize that I didn't have the complete grasp of the spec as I thought I had. Heck, I didn't know until a few months ago that the blockquote tag had a cite attribute. While that didn't prevent me from getting my job done, it was one of the things that really spurred me to start really paying attention to the HTML docs again.

Heck, you can do form validation (form validation!) completely in HTML without a line of JavaScript! It isn't perfect (neither is most JavaScript validation) and it isn't 100% supported, but it still boggles my mind that the language has evolved that much.

So - as I said - this a sermon. This has been on my mind quite a bit lately and I decided to blog it tonight after reading an excellent blog post by Ian Devlin: Link. He wrote an interesting, in depth look at the simple <a> tag.

Read it, digest it, and then spend some more time reviewing the docs.