View Source - The Webs Unsung Hero
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Web Design
If you put your cursor here
and click on your right mouse button, you’ll probably see amongst the
list of items which appear, the words “View Source” or “View Page
Source”. Click on them. Go on it won’t hurt. You should see a page of
text in different colours which looks a bit like the picture below.
For most of you it will be almost all gobbledegook, but for
some it will make complete sense. Those multi-coloured strange words
and numbers are the code which causes this page to appear on your
screens in this nice layout and easy to read script. So what? I hear
you ask. We’ll the important thing is that you can see it and copy bits
of it. You can’t do the same with Word or Angry Birds or any other
piece of commonly used software, and that fact I believe is one of the
keys to the World Wide Web’s massive success.
Back in the late nineties it’s how I learnt to create web
pages, and along with one “for dummies” book, was able to create
complex database driven web sites within a few weeks. Even today if I
see something I’ve not seen before on a web site I’ll still have a look
at how it’s been done. I’m sure a whole generation of web programmers
have done the same thing right back to the first commercially available
browsers.
This ability to look under the hood of the any web page and
understand how it was created enabled interested people to very quickly
learn how to create their own pages and underpinned the huge explosion
of interest we see in “coding” today. Many of today’s App developers
probably had their first taste of development by experimenting with web
design, and copying and editing other pages would have been one of
their primary learning tools.
Strictly speaking it’s a breach of copyright and I’m not
advocating wholesale plagiarism, but whilst some were concerned about
their work being copied, happily for all of us many more were happy to
pass on their own knowledge, and although it’s been possible to make it
much more difficult to view web page source code for many years, few
people have ever bothered. The same open approach has now been adopted
across many, probably most, software projects. WordPress, Linux and
Android are all “Open Source” meaning that their code is freely
available and can be modified by anyone for their own use.
So while the key reason for the success of the internet is
probably that from the beginning many of it’s tools have been available
for free, I think the fact that it has been so easy to view and re-use
it’s basic building blocks has also had a major impact on it’s past
growth and on the continuing success of the interconnected world which
is developing today.
About the Author
John Norton, is a senior business and
finance professional with a big four, blue chip, software and
technology background, and board level leadership experience in
finance, IT, operations, customer service and general management.
He is owner of No Worry Web, which creates and manages small
business web sites and social media presence, for an all-inclusive
monthly fee. For further details see www.noworryweb.co.uk
or call 0845 5191 275.
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Article Published/Sorted/Amended on Scopulus 2013-10-04 14:10:20 in Computer Articles
