As I’ve continued writing my zombie themed web development books, I’ve grown as a writer, a teacher, and… zombie fighter. While I’ve made changes along the way, I recently made some larger changes in my books and curriculum that I think are worth enumerating. If you have an old version of one of these books or curriculum and would like the latest, just reach out.
A Beginner’s Guide to Learning HTML (and Smacking Zombies Upside the Web Development):
Dropped: Description Lists (<dl>, <dd>, and <dt>) and Table sections (<thead>, <tbody, and <tfoot>)
Reasoning: When I first included these in the book it was more of a why-not than a these-are-important-and-should-be-in-there. Professionally, I think I’ve used a description list only once or twice and I don’t think I’ve ever used table sections. I finally realized that these sections were hurting more than they were helping and thus excised them.
Added: Quotations (<q> and <blockquote>) and Figures (<figure> and <figcaption>)
Reasoning: These, particularly quotations should have been there all along. I have no defense as to why they weren’t, but I have now rectified this. I included <figure> because it’s the most semantic way to display a <blockquote> with its author/speaker.
Beginner CSS: Like Putting Lipstick on a Zombie
Added: a section on descendant selectors
Reasoning: I had always thought it was there and wondered why my students struggled with the concept.
HTML Forms & Interactive Elements: Or How to Poke a Zombie in the Eye
Dropped: <inputs> of type week, month, image, button and datetime-local and a number of attributes (autocomplete, autofocus, form, formnovalidate, formtarget, readonly and disabled)
Reasoning: Week and Month have not reached full browser support (and likely never will), so their utility is questionable and dropping them allows me to cut down on the total number of <input> types I discuss.
Image and button are less accessible than their <button> element alternatives and so shouldn’t be used. I had kept them, justifying it by saying you might run into this in the future, but it’s really just time for them to go.
Datetime-local, while well supported, is more confusing than helpful at this stage in most learner journeys. Dropping it also let me cut down on the number of <input> types needed to discuss.
All of these attributes have their place, but I’m not sure I’ve used any of them professionally and they were muddying up things more than they were useful.
Added: “name” attributes for <details>, plus <datalist>, <dialog>, and the new popover and popovertarget attributes
Reasoning: You can chain <details> elements together such that only one can be open at a time, just give them all the same name attribute. A lot of interactive things can be done with <datalist>, <dialog> and the popover and popovertarget attributes. They deserve a place in a book about interactive HTML.
PFC Wiggins’s Unofficial Commissary: An Undead Institute HTML & CSS Workbook
Updates: Throughout the book I reference a lot of elements and used to say things like “the product div” (sans the quotation marks) which I think could be confusing particularly if discussing an element that was also an English word. Therefore I’ve wrapped all (hopefully) references to elements in angle brackets so that product div will now be product <div>.
New Books
I’ve just added a whole new case study book: Professor Blusterhiny’s Zombish 101: An Undead Institute HTML & CSS Workbook and recently finished the final (for now, at least) book in Build Your First Website series: Even Further Expand Your First Website (And Thwack those Zombies Into the Next Apocalypse with HTML and CSS) and released the Build Your First Website virtual boxed set.
Have any ideas for improving my books or curriculum? Or is there a book you’re (un)dying to see? Just reach out