Sometime during this coding experience, I became stressed about how tedious the task was and typed:
This was my very first time touching code, and before starting, I thought I’d feel so cool and professional with a screen full of symbols and numbers. I started the HTML beginner tutorial and even struggled getting TextEdit open. I then went through the steps into coding a blank white screen with hardly a resemblance of structure. If I’m going to be honest, I was happy with my work. Yes, it couldn’t have been simpler, but it turned into something.
My favorite skill in coding HTML was being able to combine a link into a phrase or word:
Here’s the same code but with PRE tags:
<pre>
<h2>Here’s a link to one of my favorite stores!</h2>
<p><a href=“https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en”>Cabelas</a></p>
</pre>Again, being able to see an actual result after running the code was so satisfying.
After completing two lessons of code, I feel like I have a better opinion on whether or not those involved in the humanities should learn how to code. I certainly feel like they should. A significant way of presenting information in the humanities is through websites. HTML and CSS are great tools for making websites. For example, if one was to conduct a project on the significance of the peony flower in ancient China and culminate their work into a website, it would almost be essential to know how to code in HTML, CSS, and others to make such a site.
Matthew Kirschenbaum explains his reasons for why those in the humanities should learn how to code:
Procedural literacy, which starts with exercises like making a snowball, will be essential if humanities students are to understand virtual worlds as rhetorical and ideological spaces, just as film and the novel are likewise understood as forms of representation and rhetoric.
“Hello Worlds (Why Humanities Students Should Learn To Program)”. Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, 2010.
After learning the mere basics of HTML and CSS, I’m genuinely excited to learn more about coding later in the term as I feel its uses far outweigh its unweildiness.
