Week One: Entrée
Github and Github Pages Experience
I've used github enough to be used to its UI and creating repositories, so that wasn't much of an issues, however something that I had trouble with was that I had some files with capitalised first letters and some without, so upon making them all the same format, I found that I could not push those changes because github isn't case sensitive when it comes to file names. I just got around that by removing and then reuploading said files, but it is definitely something I need to avoid having to do in future. The github pages experience was far simpler, as was the click of three buttons, of course the delay between uploading and the page being updated is annoying but also understandable. It's something I do look forward to using more.
Readings
The two readings that I did are: Borges - 2013 - The Library of Babel (1941) Wardrip-Fruin - 2004 - What hypertext is The Library of Babel is a concept I have been fairly familiar with for a bit, a library that contains every combination of every letter in every way, theoretically having all the information of the life, universe and everything. Which in a way is what the internet is, an insanely massive library containing vast knowledge collected by our species over our entire history. Ironically, or maybe expectedly, there is a website that houses the Library of Babel, which also features the same layout as described by Borges, found at The Library of Babel Interestingly, the website also contains a similar idea but for images, a collection of images with variations of the colour of the pixels of the image, rather than letters. What hypertext is goes into a great detail of the idea of hypertext being a grander concept than simply a link, as used in the previous paragraph or just text on a web page. The argument is that is a hypertext is complex information presented in a way that could not be continently presented on paper. This idea I agree with, in the brilliant ways in which information can be presented using the web and other applications today. Things like PowerPoint presentations would fit into this definition well.
Interesting Things about History of the Web
One of the most interesting things to me, was that IMDb was one of the first websites. It being one of the first websites makes sense when you frame it as a repository for information, but then the fact that it was movie orientated makes it strange. Partially because so much of IMDb today is orientated so much around using photos and such, and imagining it as being bare bones raw text is jarring. Also because IMDb is also used for getting the ratings and reviews of movies and shows, as well leaving your own, a form of interaction that might have been only a dream at the time of the websites inception, if even that. Another interesting thing I found, was that the line mode browser of the internet was more popular in the early days, rather than the UI based browsers, but because it makes so much sense to me. At a time when something like the web was being created, the people interested in it, that would also have a computer, would definitely be the technical crowd, whether it be other developers or enthusiast, and the fact that it could be used on so many machines means it had a very wide reach.
Goals for this course
- A strong understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Making a visually appealing website that I can use as a portfolio for job applications and to show my friends
- Have the website also be a place for me to present my short films
- Make the website both physically and technically impressive
- I would like to pass this course