HTML, CSS and our vanishing industry entry points
I remember reading articles like this years ago.<p>... Except that they were lamenting the rise of GUI operating systems and how those eliminated the easy on-ramps that command line OSes had where you could write a simple BASIC program that felt like something real.<p>It is important to be thoughtful about how people can easily get into computing. But it&#x27;s also important to <i>not</i> idolize or idealize the particular on-ramp you took X years ago. Those ramps are going to die and get replaced by new ones. It&#x27;s part of technological progress. As long as new paths come along — and they always seem to — it&#x27;s gonna be fine.<p>Frankly, raw HTML and CSS is already a dying path. If you get someone to build a simple web page from scratch, it <i>won&#x27;t</i> feel like a &quot;real thing&quot; to them. Because, today, &quot;real&quot; now means it has social sharing, interactivity, and a certain level of visual polish your web page will lack.<p>A WordPress install is a better path because it looks nice. And then they can start tweaking the template and the next thing you know they are learning a little HTML and CSS, but in the context of something that already feels real.<p>Forcing them to start with an empty notepad document is like getting someone interested in cooking by making them grow wheat.