Module 3 - Initial investigations

HTML, SGML, HTML - OR - The case of the curiously disappearing vowels…

I approached this task with great interest as, at work, I am usually writing content but it is manipulated and published by others. I (currently) have a very limited understanding of HTML (eg I knew that strong = bold in my parlance!) So this will be a great opportunity to understand how it works for ‘the other side’ of the process.

Before I started the tasks, I think that the differences between HTML and blogging are; with a blog you need to concentrate on your content – how you express yourself and you can let the ‘system’ take care of the formatting.

Using HTML, you need to also concentrate on the formatting the code is intrinsically related to (or combined with) the content (text, links text) “form and content became inseparable in html” Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us (Wench, M. 2007).

Using mark up which is “character text or binary codes 'added to' data content in order to convey particular information about that data.” (What is SGML, 1997) you have much more creative freedom in an html page that you create and also with usability and navigation elements.

Mark up is used to describe “ the nature, function, or type of content” (What is SGML, 1997) and not “…how that data content should be displayed, printed on paper, or otherwise processed” (What is SGML, 1997).

Blogs are restricted to what the blog software can offer you or what the application owner wants you to be able to do.

With HTML, you can create you own CSS (cascading style sheet) which is portable. It also means that identical content can be manipulated quickly and easily using a CSS.

A great example of this is the Zen garden, (Zen garden, n.d)
where the same content can be manipulated into various styles.


“Blogs …combine elements of hypertext with what is in many ways a much more ’linear’ form than most websites. This is because new posts are organised chronologically“. (Contributing to the Infosphere: e-writing?, n.d) is this a reason why blogs are so popular – because humans can relate easily to them back to them back to books?

References
Wench, M. (2007) Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us.Retrieved July 13, 2008 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Module 3, Contributing to the Infosphere: e-writing? (n.d).Retrieved July 13, 2008 from http://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home

What is SGML? (1997). Retrieved July 13, 2008 from http://www.isgmlug.org/sgmlhelp/exetwhy.htm

Zen garden (n.d)
Retrieved July 13, 2008 from http://www.csszengarden.com/