Avoiding distractions from the past, present, and future
In learning these components, it is easy to get distracted by details of the past, present, or future. Here's a brief description of the distractions and what you do and don't need to know.
Distractions from the past
How web pages are written today is a consequence of how they were written in the past as well as the variety of different ways past browsers were designed. You can find many examples of pages that use deprecated features (that is, features that are no longer supported by modern versions of a language) and techniques that are no longer considered to be best practice.
You do not need to know about the past to write new web pages for the present and future. Knowing how to make your code readable even using old browsers is useful, but distracts from learning the key ideas. For the most part, we will focus on current practice.
Once you have mastered the basic concepts taught here, you will find it quite manageable to adapt your work as needed. Learning old terms and practices to understand old web pages should be straightforward once you've learned to write new web pages.
Distractions from the present
There are many ways that you can mark up and style text, all based on the same general ideas. Once you understand the principles, you can easily look up the details and apply them. The Help page gives resources for further explorations.
When there are many different ways of accomplishing the same task, it can be hard to know which option to choose. We will not spend much time on options that are allowed but not recommended, instead focusing on what is required or what is recommended.
Distractions from the future
Various features of HTML5 have been designed on paper but have not yet been implemented in most browsers. Where the features make logical sense to include, such as to form good habits, they will be included. For the most part, however, the focus will be on features with effects that you can see in the present.