Minimalism, in html5 code, a kind of haiku

Many of us who find ourselves programming in HTML5 — basically using Javascript to create dynamic or otherwise interestingly interactive web pages — start out with something very simple. By “simple”, I mean that all of our Javascript code (other than code already built into the browser) fits right in the web page itself.

Eventually this wonderfully minimal approach starts to get unwieldy. As you develop your program, the code in that one file gets longer and longer, and more of a potential mess. Eventually it starts to make sense to split up your code into multiple files, just as in the physical world you might hang your clothes in the closet or place your dishes in the cupboard.

But on some level I think you never give up on that wonderful moment — when you wrote your first simple and elegant program that fits entirely into a single HTML file. Sort of the web programming equivalent of a haiku.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *