Re: [SC-USGWg] The future of the Web

[Bill Walsh]

Much the same went around some years ago. Basic HTML was a thing of the
past. Yadda Yadda Yadda

Well, basic HTML, which is the root of the web, still works. Browsers
still support it.

All the fancy whiz bang commercial sites are, excuse the expression,
CRAP.Open them up and look at the coding. Way over blown and way to
large in bytes. OR, like the mentioned sites lately, are nothing but
calls for off the shelf other things to make the site. At their most
basic level they are still HTML. All those plugins are just pre-written
html, or scripts.

They just make so a monkey can create web pages. Plug in, plug in,
plugin, there, done. Instant webpage with no knowledge how it is done.

I can't really speak for anyone but myself. I get a lot of satisfaction
CREATING web pages. It's a highly creative process, I liken it to
painting a picture with words.

I would be willing to bet dollars against donuts holes that HTML will
work far into the future.

On 5/17/22 23:52, tngenewhiz wrote:
> The recent flurry of conversation about converting our sites to
> Content-Management Systems has been invigorating.  It shows we still
> embrace the founding mission of USGenWeb.
>
> However...
>
> We are teetering on the edge of viability and long-term sustainability
> because we are not keeping up with technology. (important caveat -- I am
> far from broadly knowledgeable, but I read and have experts on speed dial)
>
> When I mentioned W3C and 504 standards in the other thread, I I should
> have said WCAG (apologies, I was about 36 hours into an all-nighter).
> At a minimum, we should be designing sites that are compliant and
> responsive to the exponentially increasing variety of connected devices
> people use.
>
> Sometimes, I feel old AF because I've been creating Web content since
> 1995.  Other times, I feel like a kid on a roller coaster as I read
> about --- and participate in --- the Web of the future.  At my
> chronological position, I am not interested in gaming or VR or the
> Metaverse.  I am, however, exceedingly interested in how those
> technologies can be deployed to provide legitimate resources and
> research guidance for individuals who are studying local and family history.
>
> This sounds a lot more like a soapbox than I intended, but I can not, in
> all good conscience, sit by and watch a project I've devoted a quarter
> century of my life to fade away.
>
> We are already in the future, whether you realize it or not.  Indexing
> the 1950 Census via artificial intelligence and crowd-sourcing is as
> close to simplified Web 3.0 as you can get. Have you made the leap to
> genealogists' "gaming" is responding to the challenges of AI-generated
> data and either allowing it to pass through our portal as is, require it
> to change, or reject it?
>
> While your making policy decisions for content delivery, you really need
> to think about the Web today and the Web in five years.  Do you want all
> your dedication, effort, and financial investment to be a waste?
>
> Here's a very short, very commercialized, but informative blog post I
> recommend you read -- https://www.singlegrain.com/web3/web-3-0/
>
> Pay attention to statements such as this:
>
> /Web 1.0 Websites Will Become Obsolete?
> If web 3.0 becomes full-fledged on the Internet, any websites based on
> web 1.0 technology will become obsolete. The old technology is incapable
> of updating its features to match the new ones. This means those sites
> will be substantially more outdated and consequently lose a competitive
> edge over new sites./
>
> Don't be freaked out by words like "blockchain" or believe it only
> relates to cryptocurrency.  Learn about the parts that relate to your
> world (both USGenWeb and elsewhere).  Start to think of USGenWeb as a
> Metaverse, of sorts, and see what ideas begin to grow.  Feed and water
> them profusely.
>
> We can't all be techsperts over night.  But, we can remember why
> USGenWeb exists, and the notion of Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Semantic Web
> gave us chills of excitement.
>
> I look forward to continuing conversations about ways USGenWeb can be
> part of the future, not relegated to a footnote in the history of
> Web-based special interest consortia.
>
> Billie McNamara
> TNGenWeb
>
>
>
>
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--


"Fast is fine but accuracy is final.
You must learn to be slow in a hurry."

Kevin Costner in "Wyatt Earp"

[Sandy (Whalen) Bauer]

HTML is the backbone of the internet. WITHOUT HTML there would be no web pages anywhere.

 

All GUI based tools to create HTML are fine for people that don’t want to learn HTML ( hyper text markup language).

 

W3C is still the organization that sets the stands for HTML versions.

 

“The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web.”

 

https://www.w3.org/

 

Sandy (Whalen) Bauer

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[Jt Harper]

Bill Walsh - I am also one who enjoys creating web pages. I remember when CSS came to light - what a furor that presented yet a boon for sure (to my mind, anyway…)

In my prior life I was part of a large government organization that decided to ‘try’ CMS. For many of us, it was truly a nightmare. We had a very large web presence (inter and intranet) so all the bells and whistles had to work - well. Sadly, the only pages that had few flaws were those not part of the CMS. After retiring, all my client pages were reconfigured and made a part of the group. I peek in now and then and am so sad to NOT see what was easily coded in html that can not be done with the existing package… these are very talented folks doing/using the CMS and yet they are unable (or unwilling) to do what many of us did with html.

I had three WordPress blogs for awhile. One was updated on a daily basis when hubby and I were traveling over 5 years. Another was a genealogy/surname related so the updates were sporadic. The last was a blog describing my ‘introduction’ to living on a ranch and being around livestock. (I am really a city girl so this was truly an experience for me!)

WordPress is not easy - I like the fact my blogs were free. I liked I could choose a ‘style’ that reflected the purpose of the blog. I like the fact interested people could receive an email notice when the blog was updated. (It sure beat sending email messages with a subject of ‘Where in the world are the Harper’s’ which is what I used to do prior to doing my blogposts…) But it was always alot of work to stay on top of the updates/changes from WordPress.

Jeannette Harper
Sent from my iPad

> On May 18, 2022, at 3:58 AM, Bill Walsh <Bi...@kctu.com> wrote:
>
> Much the same went around some years ago. Basic HTML was a thing of the past. Yadda Yadda Yadda

[tngenewhiz]

Sandy, you are correct of course.  HTML/CSS/JS/Bootstrap are the current core for foundational Web design.

That said, how many of our project participants stay current?

For starters -- https://www.w3.org/2022/04/w3c-highlights/Overview.html

Here's an analogy that is relevant to our conversation:  a 20-year-old cell phone likely still will make and receive calls.  It might have an extremely rudimentary browser.

But will it display Web content that I need in a form I can consume?

Likewise, as browser and device technology progresses, will pages coded to deprecated standards render properly?

I don't want to see all our efforts be wasted as technology screams forward.

[Bill Walsh]

My first web page was written in Notepad. At that time there were no web
page editing tools other than any plain text editor available. I had
printed off a complete, three pages in large font size, list of ALL the
available HTML tags and their modifiers. Probably about fifteen or so
tags. I would sort through the tags to find what I needed and create my
page. OJT as they say. When the fist web page editors came along that
had "buttons" to help with the tags and not so much typing [ I never
learned to type properly and have wished I had back in school many times
- Any typing teacher would cringe at my self learned style - HPC ] I was
in heaven. Over the years I have tried just about every WYSIWYG editor
that has come along but could never make a page as well as I can in HTML.

Things have certainly changed since those days. Style, then CSS. Style
tags were a great thing but CSS was a real boon. Made making the same
changes to a large number of pages so easy.