I love this idea; been there, done that.
It’s easy to forget how terrible things looked, though. As much as I hate (and at times bitterly resent) CSS, it has helped slightly. Though I would much rather things been done differently.
Yeah. It’s not really a clock any more, it’s a computer designed to rotate a motor in a simulacrum of one.
That has absolutely not been my experience. Just using the tools you mention requires more training than just looking at html text files.
I remember using a browser and a text editor on a desktop machine—without any access to the net, and a paper book filled with human-readable instructions. Today? If I forget anything (which I frequently do), I have to find one of the W3C pages and then putz with stuff until I can get 90% the way towards what I want (mostly with CSS). And then there’s ancillary matters like encryption &c.
I just think the web used to be a lot more accessible/easier to learn and do, before a bunch of programmers ran with it.
