In another essay, I will be writing, yet again, about ICS 314. Today’s topic – Semantic UI. While these essays may give the impression that I hate ICS 314, I still hadn’t completely given up on the course. I had an inkling of optimism that, one day, we’d stop playing around with all these silly coding standards and configuration management and actually start digging in to the good stuff – programming. Until that day comes, I’d just keep drudging along, mumbling obscenities, hoping one day the pain and suffering would end.
So here comes a surprise: I like Semantic UI! We’re finally back to coding. Never mind that I’ve never bothered to learn HTML and how unnatural it feels – I’ve been so starved of new programming material in the past few weeks that I’m extremely desperate. I don’t really count Javascript as a “new” language, since it’s basically more lenient Java – so HTML was the first true new language of the course.
Oh, was HTML difficult. Everyone else in the class seemed to have some previous experiences with web design and basic HTML, and here I was, completely lost. It’s easy – they say. Nope. I’d work for 40-50 minutes creating a website – and it didn’t even look nice! Not to mention that for that same exercise, the failure time would be 30 minutes. So I had worked so hard to create this incomplete masterpiece, and I still took too long. But wasn’t this what I wanted? To start programming again? I guess it was, so I didn’t complain. Still, I wished there was some way I could make a more beautiful website in less time, in a more natural way – which leads to a convenient segue into Semantic UI.
Semantic UI made life much easier. I watched all the videos, but I still sucked at making a website. Watching the videos is one thing, but actually designing the Island Snow, Murphy’s, and Bar 35 sites was entirely different. After each practice exercise, Semantic UI became a bit easier and easier, and I was finally able to complete an exercise within the allotted time. The greatest quality of Semantic UI is that once I had finally learned to use an element, or a variation, I could start building elements on elements and variations to create a more complex structure.
My professor’s evil plans actually worked. I would not have appreciated Semantic UI until I had toiled through HTML and CSS. I’ve finally made a nice website, and I’m looking forward to customizing my websites a bit further.