Paying tribute to the web with View Source

The web isn’t just another software platform. It’s the greatest software platform the world has ever seen. And yet even in its obvious glory, we’re still learning how to be grateful for all its constituent parts. Take View Source, for example.

I owe much of my career to View Source. It’s what got me started with web development in the first place. Going to sites that I liked, learning how they did what they did. Yes, I also bought a bunch of animal books from O’Reilly, and I read WIRED’s Webmonkey, and the web was full of tutorials even then. But it’s not the same. Seeing how something real is built puts the individual pieces of the puzzle together in a way that sample code or abstract lessons just don’t.

I’m clearly not alone in this story. Jason learned HTML the same way. Lots of people on the internet owe their formative steps to the marvelous wonder that is View Source.

Unfortunately View Source has been receding in recent years. Building stuff for the web has never been more complicated. And few of these new tools, frameworks, or techniques have seemed to prioritize making the web readable through View Source. That’s a real shame, because progress needn’t be the enemy of learning.

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