Hot HTML Summer: Overview

This post is a part of a series where I write a post for each module of the web.dev Learn HTML course. I'll note things I didn't know, highlight interesting items, and generally enjoy having a Hot HTML Summer.

This post covers the Overview module of Learn HTML. Each section below corresponds to a section in this module of the course. The quoted items are relevant passages from the course.

Go to this section at Learn HTML.

The entire thing—the opening tag, closing tag, and the content—is the element.

I thought only the “tag” was the element.

There are two types of elements: replaced and non-replaced.

I also didn’t know of this categorization!

Void elements are all self-closing elements and are represented by one tag. This means there is no such thing as a closing tag for a void element.

I didn’t know the name for this either. Should I be embarrassed yet?

The slash at the end is old school.

My new band name.

Go to this section at Learn HTML.

There is an interface to define the functionality of every HTML element. The HTML DOM API provides access to and control of every HTML element via the DOM, providing interfaces for the HTML element and all the HTML classes that inherit from it.

The areas where HTML and JavaScript intersect are my weakest. I only know rudimentary JavaScript, mostly just light DOM manipulation. My current HTML skills are focused on markup and document structure rather than the programatic aspects. Perhaps Hot HTML Summer will change that.

All of the sections or passages that cover APIs are likely to be ones where I’m learning the most. In this section I stepped away to read the MDN DOM API page, and then came back to re-read the section again. I’ll probably be doing a lot of this.

I have a joke with myself that I’ve had for last 25 or so years… “Some day I will learn JavaScript”. I half-heartedly started trying to learn JavaScript with the O’Reilly Definitive Guide first edition in the late 90s. I got rid of it during a move, but I still have the slim Pocket Reference as a reminder.

Admittedly the way I’ve tried to learn JavaScript is probably how most JavaScript developers try to learn CSS, by poking at it and treating as a collection of “tricks”. I really should give it a non-half-hearted try, but we’ll save that for another day, or summer.