tags:

views:

150

answers:

6

Hey everyone.

Can someone suggest:

  • how to start learning XML and HTML
  • which I should start first, and
  • what steps should I take

I know Objective-C as I’m an iPhone programmer, but I want to know more about web-based applications, so please someone help me with steps should I take as a beginner?

Thanks.

+2  A: 

w3schools has excellent tutorials:

ZippyV
+1 Good point, W2C are in a better position to know than anyone else.
Mawg
W3Schools have some dreadful tutorials (which teach some bad practices that you don't notice cause problems until much later ... if ever) and are **not** the W3C.
David Dorward
A: 

That might be tricky as HTML 5 is not expected to be ratified before 2022(!) - at the earliest. You are shooting at a moving target - although much is probably already known, so it might not change too much.

If no one else answers, then all that I can suggest is going to Amazon and seeing which books get the highest reader rating ... http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1275905800/ref=sr_st?keywords=html+5&page=1&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Ahtml+5%2Cn%3A!1000&sort=reviewrank_authority

Or find some HTML 5 specific forums and ask there.

Mawg
'ratified' means there's a number of fully compliant browsers -- the spec will be 'approved' years before that.
Joe
“HTML 5 is not expected to be ratified before 2022(!) - at the earliest” – Bollocks! I do wish people would stop ignorantly citing this. 2022 is Ian Hickson’s off-the-cuff guess about when there will be *two complete interoperable implementations* of HTML5 (see http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#When_will_HTML5_be_finished.3F). We don’t have that yet for HTML4, which seems to be working just fine. Where you got “ratified” from, other than your own arse, I don’t know.
Paul D. Waite
And just to offer an alternative, rather than being negative — HTML5, just like CSS 3 (and 2 and 1, come to that) is not one thing. It‘s several features. Some work in all browsers already (e.g. the HTML5 doctype); some work in newer browsers, and don’t break in old browsers (e.g. `<input type="email">`); some work in newer browsers and break in older browsers (e.g. `<section>`). Feel free to wait for the entire spec to be finished and set in stone and implemented everywhere if you like. Seems like a waste when there are features that work today.
Paul D. Waite
Errm, I was going to apologize for misleading - sheesh imagine believing something I read don the Internet (and not even on an HTML 5 page either ;-) I _was_ going apologize until I to the "arse" comment. Then I was going to start a flame war, but that soon passed. Tell you what, Paul, can you help the OP (and me) and tell us what you do know? Thanks.
Mawg
+2  A: 

After getting a first grasp of XML and HTML5 in any tutorial out there (like, the mentioned from w3schools), you should definitively read the official specifications (they are not this hard to understand). Having them in mind will save you from lots of troubles and wrong understandings lateron.

Oh, and you can, of course, ask Wikipedia about any of these to get a first impression.

Boldewyn
+1. Official docs are well written, and there's no risk of learning bad practices.
Agos
This answer reminds me of the old Steve Martin routine on how to make two million dollars. It starts off with "first, make one million dollars". You answered the question "where do I start" with "after getting a first grasp...". I think the question is about how to get that first grasp.
Bryan Oakley
@Bryan Oakley: If you want, I answered part of the "what steps should I take" sub-question. And if the OP is an experienced programmer, he even might learn more from the specs than from some half-baked tutorial that Google put at the top by chance for some obscure reasons (which is, I *don't* say that this applies to other suggestions here. Dive into HTML5 is great, although perhaps not a good beginner's tutorial).
Boldewyn
+2  A: 

For info on HTML 5 it's worth heading to divintohtml5.org where Mark Pilgrim's soon to be published by O'Reilly book is currently being exhibited. Definitely worth reading in my opinion.

ZippyV's links to w3schools will also be very helpful and of course the official specs mentioned by Boldewyn.

Aside from that there are plenty of HTML5 articles flying around at the moment, you'll be able to find some good ones simply by searching online.

Jack Roscoe
+2  A: 

I have an ever growing list of HTML5 experiments over at HTML5 Laboratory.

I also recommend HTML5 Doctor.

Ian Devlin
A: 

XML and HTML don’t actually have a lot to do with other in practice.

You can write HTML with an XML syntax, but when you’re using HTML to create web-based apps, most of your work will be:

  • figuring out what HTML elements do
  • figuring out how to make them look nice (via CSS) and provide more user interactions than they do by default (using JavaScript)
  • figuring out how they work in different browsers

None of this has anything much to do with XML.

For starting out with HTML, you might want to try O’Reilly’s HTML: The Definitive Guide (5th edition). It doesn’t cover HTML5 yet, but it’ll give you a solid grounding.

Then, as already mentioned, Dive into HTML5 is great for learning the new stuff in HTML5. It assumes you already know some HTML, which is why I’d suggest the O’Reilly book or similar first.

Paul D. Waite