Why learn html ?

[Vihart]

Im new to the world of html , css and so on and i just learnt today what deprecated tags are and that basically the html (4.0) tags that im using may not be used in the near future and replaced with html 5 or something else. Also ive learnt that as a whole it may be better to just use css - is all of this true and what type of html should i learn ? i dont want to learn something that will eventually be replaced with something else and having to redo all the code again for my future website.

[Dilated]

what type of html should i learn ?

HTML5: http://whatwg.org/html5

i dont want to learn something that will eventually be replaced with something else and having to redo all the code again for my future website.

You should want to rid yourself of deprecated elements. This is the nature of the web, things change. You're going to have to get used to it, though, personally, I don't expect any major changes to be made to the html5 spec at this point.

Also ive learnt that as a whole it may be better to just use css

CSS is a stylesheet language, it is only there to determine how the html is rendered visually. You can't have CSS without some kind of markup language (or a language that creates DOM somehow).

[Vihart]

HTML5: http://whatwg.org/html5You should want to rid yourself of deprecated elements. This is the nature of the web, things change. You're going to have to get used to it, though, personally, I don't expect any major changes to be made to the html5 spec at this point.CSS is a stylesheet language, it is only there to determine how the html is rendered visually. You can't have CSS without some kind of markup language (or a language that creates DOM somehow).

thanks alot, and thanks for taking the time to explain

[Ingolme]

I recommend learning HTML 4.01, not HTML 5.It's the most stable version of HTML and will be for a long time. It's OK to look into HTML 5 once you're experienced with HTML 4.01.

[boen_robot]

It's probably best to keep in mind that (X)HTML is about the structure (a.k.a. "semantics") of your page, whereas CSS is about its appearance. As implied, the appearance is applied to a structure, so you can't use CSS without (X)HTML in place.Any (X)HTML element you'd use solely for appearance's sake is deprecated (e.g. "center", "basefont"), and you should expect elements of similar kind to be candidates for deprecation. "b" and "i" are the best examples for candidates - they don't define any kind of structure or semantics, but just make the text in them bold and italic, respectively. The only reason they aren't deprecated is due to their popularity, coupled with the fact CSS wasn't as estabilished as today when HTML 4.01 was created. They remain in the current HTML 5 draft solely for their popularity.If you want to be on the safe side, I'd reccomend using XHTML 1.0 Strict. HTML 5 is expected to have XHTML equivalent, so using XHTML is not going to be a problem.XHTML, when done right (long story), can tell you about syntax error in your code, making development and debugging of new XHTML pages easier. It also has a certain "hidden" feature that you may find useful when you become more advanced, and reach programming languages like PHP. When not done right (again, long story) it won't offer you anything HTML 4.01 doesn't have. It won't give you anything less either though, so there's no reason not to use it.For best results, learn HTML, CSS and XHTML, in this order.

[ApocalypeX]

HTML 5 is something you probably wont even need yet. Best to follow what the guys said above me.

[thescientist]

Along with all the great advice given and knowledge shared, I would also add learning how to get in the habit of validating your code as you develop. If you see my signature, you will find a link to a site that will help you check your document for correct structure and will alert you to any errors in your code, like deprecated tags. If you have Firefox, you can get an extension called the web developers toolbar that gives you an option to have validation happen on the fly, so as you are coding, it will show you in your browser if you have any errors, so you can catch them sooner, rather than later, after a number of them have built up and before you get to attached to the design of your site (attached enough so that fixing any errors would force you to have to rework the page's implementation in order for it to be valid (X)/HTML or CSS).

[Dilated]

I recommend learning HTML 4.01, not HTML 5.It's the most stable version of HTML and will be for a long time. It's OK to look into HTML 5 once you're experienced with HTML 4.01.

If you're not comfortable with html5 yet, don't look into the additions of html5 - use only what it considered stable - stay away from sectioning elements. You can choose to use only elements that existed in html4 if you want. It's better to have an understanding of the revised aspects of html4. I see no reason not to reference the html5 spec when learning html. I'll concede it is hard to get the hang of reading a specification, especially for someone who is new to web development, which is why it might be easier to learn html4 - there are more tutorials. That is the only legitimate reason I could see for recommending html4 to someone.

[Vihart]

wow thanks for the great advice - i think il stick to what im using , now im trying to get the hang of css and then il look at others