The calm before the storm, literally. As I write this Tropical Storm Karen approaches the Gulf coast, coincidentally this week has provided an unexpected lull. The beginning of the week looked as thought it would be full of work. I was put to grading Distributed System projects. It was an interesting project where students had to create a file of data in XML, an XSD for validation and XSLT file to generate a HTML file. I must say I find using W3C standards enjoyable and long for the day when computers are fast enough that everyone is using them. I remember when I was first introduced to XML, validation was strictly DTD (no one was willing to use XSD) and the only way to use XML seemed to be through SOAP. Granted I was a noob and the only language I had under my belt was HTML and a little JavaScript but it was interesting none the less.
That reminds me of a little story I told this week. A few students were discussing Python with me and were having trouble getting their heads around the syntax. So I told them of how I learned HTML. Officially I learned HTML my last semester for my Bachelors, but I really didn't appreciate that I had learned most of the language in that course. So I bought a book, as I tend to do a lot. It was a pretty think book, a thousand pages or more. So I read it and was still not convinced that I knew HTML. So I bought another and another, about halfway through the third book I realized, hey this is all familiar. It was then that I realized I understood the depth of HTML. Of course you can't really know a language until you teach it. Luckily the first class I taught was HTML. The student body ranged from kids out of high school to an elderly lady. I taught that course for several years, I could catch a missing 'carrot' (< >) from two rows behind a student. I was living breathing HTML interpreter.
Oh well hopefully the rain will hold off long enough for my Tennis clinic.
See you in Thirty Two weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment