I have a feeling this is going to quickly turn into "Genocide or cake?"

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Cake, please!

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Well, of course it's not a programming language. It's a markup language, or in this case a glorified settings file for a markup language.

I admit that it's an irrational peeve of mine that I care about the difference between the two. I think I got sick of all the people saying that I couldn't possibly be a real computer programmer because I hadn't mastered HTML.

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You will be amused to note that the actual conversation prior to the quote went something like this:

R: I'm going to be doing some programming tonight.
B: Oh? Cool. What in?
R: Well, I have to write some web page components for a project of mine, like the Dynamic HTML menubar.
B: Oh, so are you going to be using PHP?
R: No, no php. Mostly just writing the template, then I've got to get my style sheets set up.
B: Um ...
R: And maybe write the Javascript to get the menus running.
B: Ah, OK. You do realize that you told me you were going to be doing some programming, but Javascript was the first actual programming language you mentioned.
R: Well, duh. Of course HTML isn't a programming language. ;-p
B: print($QOTD);

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*facepalms*

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Ahem. He's conveniently leaving out the parts in between the end of that conversation and the beginning of the quote, which went something like,

R: Well, yeah, I know that CSS and HTML aren't programming languages. They have no logical constructs. It just feels like it because it's so bloody difficult to get it right.

Still lame, maybe, but I'll start to get defensive if a bunch of folks want to call me out on this. For one, I've made the same "HTML isn't programming, idiot" argument myself a number of times, and for another, I do have a ridiculously broad, long, and varied background in real programming.

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I didn't remember how you'd phrased it, so I guessed through it as best I could. You are definitely correct that you know the difference between HTML/CSS and programming, and I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

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What are Java, C(++), HTML, and Python?

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What are Java, C(++), HTML, and Python?

Um, here's just a guess: a hot cup of coffee that was never filtered, or , if it was filtered it was through a pair of my old gym socks; Hell (in a handbasket); an unpredicatble markup language; a large snake that just learned what function currying is, but it doesn't really matter since nobody ever programs in it like it was a functional language.

Just a guess, mind.

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*cracks up*, especially at the C(++) description

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> What are Java, C(++), HTML, and Python?

I'm not sure how to answer most of those -- the original analogy is commentary on how torturous it is to get the language to do what it was freaking designed to do. Unless you're used to programming in Befunge or Brainfuck, this is not a common programming experience.

But I do have a snappy answer for HTML: If CSS is war and Flash is genocide, then HTML is that vaguely annoying zit in the small of your back that you just can't reach and you don't want to ask anyone else to pop it for you because, really, that would just be disgusting and you're just not the sort of person who would do that.

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What can I say? It's been a stressy couple of weeks.

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As far as I'm concerned, you need no justification whatsoever to gripe about a product so hideously buggy. The rants speak for themselves.

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